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      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    I’m wondering if some non-Murrikans (or well-traveled Murrikans) can help me out with some phrases or sayings that use units in them. Being from the US, I’m obviously most familiar with phrases using imperial units (or whatever the official name for the American system is), not metric units, and sometimes, just replacing the imperial unit with the nearest equivalent metric one just doesn’t sound right.

    Here’s an example: I want to say that someone moves “a fraction of an inch”. But I realized the perspective character would use metric units. What would she say instead? “He sat back a fraction of a centimeter” just sounds wrong. Is that what you’d actually say, or would you say something different?

    Another one: “There’s nothing this way for miles.” Would “nothing for kilometers” work?

    Just in general, what do you use for common units? When you’re talking about things that are very close together, are they “just centimeters apart”, for example? For talking about length of things, what units would you use? Do you ever use anything other than meter/centimeter/kilometer?

    I guess these same things apply to other units of measurement as well. In a recipe, say, what would be the equivalent to “a teaspoon of salt, two tablespoons of butter, and a cup of milk”? I’m assuming milliliters for liquids and grams for dry ingredients, but again, do you ever use anything other than milliliter/liter and gram/kilogram?

    And anything else on this topic. For some reason, it’s come up a few times lately in my writing, and while I’m familiar with the metric system in general (and conversions and all that), I’m not so familar on how it’s actually used in real life.

    •  
      CommentAuthorInkblot
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    I’ve spent a great deal of time with Polish people living in America, and also I read some James Bond and Agatha Christie. :D

    Distance units are used in everyday conversation. My Polish friends always referred to distance in kilometers, height in meters, size in centimeters, etc. etc.

    I think all British Empire countries use bits and pieces of the imperial system for cooking measurements, but I wouldn’t know for sure.

    • CommentAuthorSen
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012 edited
     

    We use the metric system here, but some phrases are just so fixed that it seems weird and wrong to try and convert it. For more technical contexts, sure, a conversion is necessary, but I’m not sure you absolutely have to do it as some phrases just come more naturally and it makes no sense to be too nitpicky about it.

    “He sat back a fraction of a centimeter” just sounds wrong.

    It does sound a bit wrong. But I have seen it used before. In speech or writing, I just say “inch”, but it really depends on what you want to convey. I would use “inch” if being very expressive: “Ah damn, they just missed it by an inch!” If the narrator however is conveying distance-related information, it would seem better to be a bit more strict about it. Just take note, that in naturally occurring speech, people just don’t pay that much attention to conversions, especially if other phrases have just become very familiar. It’s absolutely necessary though, outside of casual conversation.

    “There’s nothing this way for miles.” Would “nothing for kilometers” work?

    Yeah, we use kilometers in measuring, but the first is very familiar. Again, it depends on the situation. If a friend’s telling me about a frustrating trip during which her car broke down, she would be most likely to exclaim that there wasn’t a petrol station for miles, not kilometers.

    If however, you were giving directions to a stranger and you were trying to be as helpful as possible with many little details, you might throw in there: “Then you’ll come to a long stretch of road, you won’t see anything for the next couple of kilometers until you reach the toll booth. Here, you can see that as one would not likely be too expressive with a stranger, he’ll resort to something more technical.

    This is a bit difficult as English speakers are exposed to other forms of the language. They would read plenty of stuff written by American authors, and watch plenty of American-made shows and films. They’re pretty influential and all of this affects natural speech.

    I think, in your writing, it’s just important to establish for each situation just how informal or formal it is. You can relax when it comes to phrases. Phrases are common and people, even those using the metric system, would allow them to crop up easily in speech.

    do you ever use anything other than milliliter/liter and gram/kilogram?

    Nope. And if you were taking a recipe book as an example, you would sometimes see the amount of something needed in grams with the amount in teaspoons in brackets right next to it. Or sometimes just the measurement in tablespoons, and then at other times just in grams. There’s no absolute rule for it.

    Also, I’m only throwing one perspective out there. Our English is very similar to British English, but there may be some differences between the two that I might have failed to point out here. Especially when it comes to conversational English. Of course both our and their natural speech would have developed totally differently and I’m not entirely sure how against they would be using phrases that include miles or inches. Although, I really doubt it. They read books by foreign authors and watch American television. Constant exposure to a “different” English will affect you at some level. But when it comes to the British or anyone else, that’s just guessing on my part.

    edit:

    I continually said that it doesn’t matter so much in casual speech, but I’m only referring to very common phrases. Even in casual conversation, one who uses the metric system would say meters and centimeters. With fixed and familiar phrases however, it works a bit differently.

    •  
      CommentAuthorBlueMask
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    I don’t know about anyone else, but if we’re using kilometers in casual conversation [like the giving directions to someone situation] we say kays. As in, there’s a dairy on the left in a couple of kays [k’s].

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012 edited
     

    do you ever use anything other than milliliter/liter and gram/kilogram?

    Nope. And if you were taking a recipe book as an example, you would sometimes see the amount of something needed in grams with the amount in teaspoons in brackets right next to it. Or sometimes just the measurement in tablespoons, and then at other times just in grams. There’s no absolute rule for it.

    We do have metric cups for cooking, as well. 1 cup = 250mL, and then it is divided more traditionally into half, third and quarter cups. In Australia we sometimes get gallon drums (for example, rain tanks), but kilolitres are more common.

    kilometers in casual conversation [like the giving directions to someone situation] we say kays.

    Kays or Clicks, they both work depending on the area. You’re more likely to hear ‘click’s in New South Wales (Australia) or parts of New Zealand. Clicks are technically a US military term, but 1.0 clicks = 1.0 kilometres, so they are literally interchangeable.

    Australia only recently (historically speaking – my mother can remember the switch happening when she was in school: she had to buy a new ruler, and an entire textbook devoted to conversion calculations) switched to metric, so we still have a lot of language from imperial measurements, so the exaggeration “I’ve been walking for miles!” or “a fraction of an inch” is common, although some of us are more likely to use a colloquial expression, like “the width of a bee’s dick” or “halfway to Wagga-Wagga”, and we still use things like inches, cubits, spans and such in casual conversation but not in technical measurements. We also get socket sets, spanners and such in both imperial and metric measurements.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    “the width of a bee’s dick” or “halfway to Wagga-Wagga”

    Sometimes I wonder if Australians just make these things up to see if you can get the rest of the world to believe you.

    •  
      CommentAuthorInkblot
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    cubits, spans

    You know that the rest of the Western world stopped using both of these around when Moses died, right?

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    I was thinking that too. :P

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012 edited
     

    That was a joke, based on my opinion that imperial units are as equally nonsensical and outdated as cubits and spans.

    edit: And no, “the width of a bee’s dick” is an actual thing, I’ve heard it (but not used it) many times before, largely from truck drivers, drovers, and other hardened travelling folk.

    •  
      CommentAuthorInkblot
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    In my opinion metric units are just too cold and distant. They’re uncomfortable.

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    Metric makes life easy. It’s why the rest of the world uses it.

    But we Murrikans like being contrary like that.

  1.  

    Metric does not make life easy. I don’t know how long a kilometer is, but I do know how long a mile is. Therefore, Imperial > Metric.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012 edited
     

    A kilometre is exactly 1000 metres. A metre is exactly 100 centimetres. A centimetre is exactly 10 millimetres. A millimetre is 0.039370 inches, or just less than 25/64ths of an inch.

    •  
      CommentAuthorSoupnazi
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    Though really, wouldn’t year/month/day make the most sense, as the most identifiable information is first, and then it narrows it down from there?

    Though I agree with the rest, even if I like our cozy little feet and how short they are.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    the day/month/year system is best because the most important information is the first thing you see. Days change every day, so that’s the first number that needs to be kept track of.

    •  
      CommentAuthorSoupnazi
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    Aha! That is correct: on a day by day basis, putting the day first in the date would make it most easily identifiable. There would certainly be situations where having the year first would be preferable (if something happens on the same date every few years, you’d want to have the years listed first as otherwise it’s the same), but in most cases having the day first would be easiest.

    Why did I just write out that whole argument when nobody was arguing with me.

    • CommentAuthorNo One
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012
     

    ^So that we can all agree with you. :P

  2.  

    Some people do write it dd/mm/yyyy. Most don’t. At school, it’s dd Month yyyy. No confusion there.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2012 edited
     

    At work because Microsoft doesn’t like filenames with slashes, I have to archive everything as dd.mm.yyyy. Although some people like to archive things as ddMMMyy. So when we’re searching for archived information, some of it might be, for example, 07.11.2011, but some of it might be 07NOV11, but then some of it might be listed as NOV0711, as well.

    très contrariété.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeApr 25th 2012
     

    I don’t have strong opinions on the “best” way to write a date (although yyyy/mm/dd or dd/mm/yyyy do seem the most logical), but I just wish everyone would agree on a single system. Nothing more confusing than trying to sort out dates between someone who writes dates dd/mm/yyyy and someone who writes them mm/dd/yyyy.

    I love the internet for giving me exposure to other people and cultures. I loathe the internet for that too sometimes, though. :P

  3.  

    Metric and Celsius are much easier and more logical. The only reason they are hard for us Murrikens is because the cultural associations aren’t there. If we switched to Celsius, for example, it would take a while to break the association that 32° is really cold.

    The only one I slightly disagree with is the date one. The reason is because saying “January sixth, nineteen-ninety-seven” for “1/6/97” sounds more natural to me. I think the way you’d read d/m/y would be “the sixth of January, nineteen-ninety-seven” for “6/1/97” which sounds clunky to me and also has way to many implied words for my tastes. If that’s not how you guys read the date, how do you read it? Anyway, that’s just a personal preference, and I do see how d/m/y is more logical, though I don’t think it’s as big of a logical difference as imperial and metric.

  4.  

    For filenames it is better to say 120714 for 14 July 2012 (Bastille Day, for example). Anyone can understand that if day>month and you can see the year pattern in a hard drive. I have drives with files for 970612 and it’s been great, because having the numbers first arranges everything by date automatically.

    American might consider how you say “The Fourth of July”, and just imagine saying that for any other day of the year. It’s not so hard. The 25th of April. Some might even go so far as to say the 25th Day of the Fourth Month.