It seems like a weird point to bring up. How often do y’all convert your measurements? It’s not even a daily thing. If I’m measuring something, I either do it in inches, or feet, rarely yards. I’ve never once had to convert feet into miles, and I can’t imagine I’m unique in this. When I have needed to, it’s usually converting down (I.e. 1/3 of a foot), which imperial does handle better in more cases.
Like. I don’t care if we switch, I do mostly use metric personally, it just seems like a weird point to be the most common pro-metric argument when it’s also the one I’m least convinced by due to how metric is based off of base 10 numbering, which has so many problems with it.
Edit: After reading/responding a lot in the comments, it does seem like there’s a fundamental difference in how distance is viewed in metric/imperial countries. I can’t quite put my finger on how, but it seems the difference is bigger than 1 mile = 1.6km
Tl;dr: I think the different imperial units represent a shift of scale that just doesn’t happen in day to day life, given how different most of the common ones are.
Yeah, we largely… Don’t? We’re much more likely to 10x10 feet is 100 feet instead of 33 yard+1 foot. Even if we do go with something that ends on 99 feet I don’t know anyone who would convert that to yards, even the GPS just says “In 200 feet turn right.”
Anything above about 600 feet gets talked about in fractions of a mile. 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, etc, but if we’re talking feet and go into that most would just stick with feet. 200+460 feet is 660 feet, not an eight of a mile, despite being an eighth of a mile.
If we’re talking the “equivalent” to 10x1000 meters, we’d start talking about miles, not feet/yards xD I think it’s because going from one unit to the other represents a shift in scale that just doesn’t get run into frequently in day to day life? Because a yard is about a meter, 1 meter is about 7.5cm shorter, which is negligible for this discussion. A mile is 1,760 of those. I know that conversion because I’m a nerd, I doubt most people do, because it’s not common enough in day to day life to need it. Land surveyors might, I’d assume they’re more likely to know a lot of weirder ones, like feet to chains (66 feet), and maybe furlongs (10 chains) over the direct yard/miles conversion, since chains/furlongs were made for that profession, but I’m not, and don’t know a surveyor so I can’t say for sure.
I just don’t believe you at all.
There are 12 inches in a foot. So the scale of a foot is 12x that of an inch.
There are 100cm in 1m. That is 100x.
Europeans convert cm to m very frequently, and it’s a scale shift 10x larger than the one of inch-foot.
We also convert km to m frequently, which is a 1000x scale shift. It’s more than half that of yard-mile.
The reason you don’t convert often is because it is a pain in the ass to do so. Not the other way around.
The reason you say “an eight of a foot” has meaning, while “0.125 feet” does not. However, saying “125 meters” is way easier for both the listener and the talker than “an eighth of a kilometer”. If it weren’t, we’d say 1/8km, since nothing in metric prevents you from doing that.
A: The average height of a woman in the US is 1 meter, 6 decimeters, 7 centimeters, 5 millimeters.
B: You seem like a tremendously fun person to be around.
A: I don’t know what point you are trying to make. Could you clarify? To clarify on my part, nobody would say what you said. We would probably choose one of the following options:
Of course options 1 and 2 sound basically the same when spoken. And we wouldn’t measure a human height to mm precision, so 1.68m, 1m 68cm, and 168cm.
B: ad hominem.
A: No.
B: Oh, I’m not invalidating your points by calling you an asshole. I, in fact, am on the same side as you are. I do think metric should be used, I just think the conversion point is kind of a bad one. You just come off like an asshole.
A: well. If you don’t want to have a conversation. Why are you here?
B: I didn’t realize you were calling me an asshole before. I don’t know why you’re calling me an asshole. I don’t remember insulting you. But if I may: you are a dickhead. Is that how we have arguments on the internet?