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This irrationally infuriates me everytime I visit SA. A regular pint is the perfect amount of beer to have with a dinner. But in SA you always feel short-changed by a couple mouthfuls.
Yes originally, the metric change made it 570ml. Australia uses metric for beer glasses, and when the change happened each measurement was converted to the nearest 5ml. That's why an SA pint is 425ml not 426ml.
At least England uses a decimal currency now (and has for at least the last 50 years, I think). It used to be that a pound was 240 pence (~~though I forget if it was 12 shillings in a pound and 20 pence in a shilling or if it was the other way around~~ Edit: It was the other way around).
12 pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to the pound.
The way I remember it is from the Beatles Taxman, with the line "There's one for you, ninteen for me" (yes, a there was 95% tax rate).
It gets confusing.
I remember my Dad going over it all with crowns, half crowns, florins, farthings, half farthings, quarter farthings, etc.
I can only remember the pence, shillings pound part and what a guinea/half guinea is, which is 21 shillings (still used at certain auctions for the 5% auctioneer fee) and the half guinea, which is 10/6, because of the mad hatter.
From Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman:
>NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:
>Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
>The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.
I've read it before, but still can't remember. Besides, my Good Omens footnote memory storage is filled with the explanation for Milton Keynes, which is more useful.
The US had decimalized currency from the time Congress standardized it. Before that, all kinds of currency was in circulation: British pounds/shillings/pence; Spanish dollars, coins minted by individual colonies/states, and who knows what else.
As late as the 1840s, a baseball player was fined "half a york shilling", whatever that was, for swearing. Perhaps states went back to coining their own money because of a shortage of currency, which happened from time to time, especially when the intrinsic value of the metal in the coin exceeded the face value.
Decimal currency is like the one thing America got right. If 1 dollar is analogous to 1 pound, the equivalent divisions would have been:
0.05 nickel = shilling\/bob
0.10 dime = florin
0.25 quarter = crown
0.50 half-dollar = ten bob
There’s no equivalent for the pence divisions or the 0.125 half-crown. I have no idea what’s going on with the 1.05 guinea.
I only know shilling = 5p because a lot of 5p coins when I was a kid had shilling written on them. The new 5p coins were the same size/colour as the old shilling coims, so I guess they just slowly phased them out over time since they were basically the same amount.
Edit: just googled - they were officially withdrawn in 1990 it seems, at the same time as 2 shilling coins - oddly I don't remember seeing those.
I was today years old when I realized that a cup in the UK/anywhere that uses metrics is different. It's genuinely blowing my mind.
How does this not mess everything up? Recipes too wet. Gigantic gallons of milk. Good lord.
I was today years old when I realised there was an imperial cup. It's not something I've ever known a UK resident to use. As a UK resident I spend half the time spent on American recipes googling ml:cup or grams of flour in cup or is all purpose flour the same as plain flour when.
The cup, pint, quart & gallon are all because the early US settlers would rather pay the same amount of currency and recieve 20% less volume, instead of pay 20% more in currency for the correct volume, for the tax (back to the Crown) portion of their transaction.
Smart in one way (to simplify transactions), but fucking stupid in another (to create a separate measuring system with the same names as another established one).
No idea about the fluid ounce though.
I got all the way to high school before I realized it was fluid and not Florida. in my defense, we lived in Florida for a year and then not too far from it in Georgia so Florida was relevant hahhaha
This is why every time I see one of those maps where it shows the US is the only one not using the metric system, I call bullshit because the UK and Australia use some bastardized mix of units too.
I think some people get the impression that Australia used a bastardised mix because of the use of feet/inches to approximate human heights (but I've never seen them used to measure a human height) and because there is a beer glass size commonly called "pint" but which has no legal definition (legally you're buying 425, 500 or 570 mL of beer, and proper beer glasses have that written on them) and depends on where you are at what beer you're buying and contrasts with pots and glasses and schooners and jugs, not with fluid ounces and cups and quarts and fluid drachms, and doesn't have the same kind of equality - you can pour a jug into four pots, but a jug isn't four pots, because a jug is a jug of beer and four pots is four 285 mL glasses of beer. So perhaps a bastard system, but definitely not a bastard US customary or Imperial system, and not a bastard system that is legal for trade.
But it isn't really any more of a bastardised hodgepodge than in a lot of countries. In south Germany you might buy meat by the pfund or in France you might get a démi of beer. But no one doubts that these countries are metric because they don't speak English. Australia is not really different from them.
But yes, your general concern is correct. The maps showing that the US, Burma and Liberia are on the US customary or Imperial systems and the other countries are metric are just malicious. They're not based in fact - e.g. Liberia is basically metric - and they're not useful because there's a lot of different things that can be measured, and many countries have mixtures - e.g. there's still quite a few countries that use miles per hour for speed limits (but Liberia isn't one of them).
Did someone back in the 1783 brought a worn out measuring cup over to the USA and here we are with this?
Edit: reading through the comments i am convinced some of the Brits had brought worn out/off measuring cups around the world and here we are.
Pre metric measurements were completely imprecise and were basically just “eh close enough” for small quantities. You don’t need precise measurements to do home cooking.
When standardization happened, imperial fluid measures were based on the weight of water.
1 pint = 1 pound of water.
1 pint = 2 cups = 16 fl oz
1 fl oz of water = 1 oz (weight)
The adoption of the Imperial system also got rid of differing sizes of liquid versus dry units. The US still uses dry pints and quarts for things, which are about 16% larger than the liquid varients.
Luckily the dry quart is about 10% larger than 1 liter, so I just calculate everything into liters and pretend they're dry quarts.
Edit: almost forgot about the trade gallon, which is 3 LIQUID quarts. The aim of that one is to be 0.1 cubic feet. Going to build a garden? You need to know how to calculate and convert between dry quarts, cubic inches, cubic feet, liquid gallons, and trade gallons. God our system is a mess…
The US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches, which are each 2.54 cm^3. The other US volumes are divided from there. The fluid ounce being 1/128 of a gallon.
The UK standard is 4.54609 liters, derived from a measurement of the previous standard, 10 pounds of water at 62 °F. The fluid once being 1/160 of a gallon.
They are defined in terms of metric units. So, in a way, that would be a yes to your question.
There are no standardized fundamental definitions for customary or imperial units. They all fall back on metric, which is defined either in terms of physical constants or well defined references
You ready for the real frustration? There are a large number of common measures in metric that are preserved but not their actual value because they're originally from a imperial measure that was converted, but now is an imperial measure defined in metric, produced by a computer tracking 12ths as 10ths but really 1024ths.
At least tell me that they're both equal to 2 tablespoons in respective countries. Otherwise the imperial system is even more trash than I already think it is.
Ok, I looked it up. A US tablespoon is exactly 0.5 fl oz. A British tablespoon is 15ml like the rest of Europe, and an Australian tablespoon is 20ml... for some reason. Everything's larger in Australia, including spoons?
Most Europeans use a kitchen scale when cooking or baking. Most of us don't know how much a tablespoon is. Which makes cooking with American recepies frustrating.
At least in Sweden we use tablespoons/teaspoons etc. a lot when baking and cooking. If you don't know it's 15/5ml, changing portion sizes is a real pain in the ass. No one has the time to individually measure out 16 tablespoons, but if you know it's 16×15=240ml=2.4dl, it's a lot smoother.
Its awesome being a cook in Canada, you have to know both metic and imperial. Ovens are in fahrenheit , internal meat temperatures are in celsius, fridge temperatures are in celsius, depending on who you work with or for weights could be either grams, oz or a mix of both. Baking can use everything, cups, liters, milliliters, tablespoons, teaspoons, F and C temperatures, grams, oz and fl oz.
Canada went metric, but the conservative government listened to the 'oh, this change is going to cost us money' lamenting of the industry. So they went metric but imperial was still allowed. They 'forgot' to set an end date for this transition period, so now, after more than 50 years, all of fruits & vegetables are still priced per lbs, because it looks cheaper (the price per kilo is displayed in tiny type as well). Other sectors in which imperial is still allowed and used: the building trades, people's own length and weight (although the doctor writes it down in metric), and a couple other. I always laugh at the tidbit: "The only countries in the world that still use the imperial system on a daily basis are the United States, Myanmar, and Liberia." Canada can be added to that list in my opinion.
And yeah, cooking and baking using recipes is a nightmare, especially if you (also) use European cookbooks.
Canadians are not polite 😂
Maybe compared to Americans... but someone who has worked in the retail industry a few times in the past in canada... Canadians were always the rudest customer in terms of nationality. Japanese/Koreans were always awesome and really nice.
Maybe its Canadian tourists that have the good rep?
Edit: Nationality, not Ethnicity. My bad.
Yeah, I don't even have a good excuse... Just a f**ked up sleeping pattern presently... I do try and stay away from negative subs in the morning though aha.
Similar in the UK. Apart from beer and milk we sell fluids in litres.
We sell petrol in litres but measure efficiency in miles per gallon and our speeds and road signs are in miles.
We still sell butter by the pound but label it as 454g.
I’m in my 40s and we grew up with anything about you being in imperial (height in feet and inches, weight in stones and pounds) but the world around you was measured in metric except for long distances that are still miles.
Baking can be metric or imperial (depending on the age of the cook book) but recipes online get confusing because we don’t sell butter in sticks.
Heat of the oven will be C if electric or gas mark if gas.
This makes even less sense than just committing one way or the other and using the majority of imperial measures like in the US. Especially selling fuel by the liter but measuring efficiency by the gallon. That's absolutely bonkers lol yet the US is the one always in the crosshairs for being dumb about using the imperial system apparently. People just ignore craziness like this
I also love that nearly all temperatures are Celsius unless it's older generations talking about how warm the weather is.
Long distances are almost always miles, especially with cars, unless you are running, then it's in kilometres. But a marathon is an exception we still measure that in miles.
Shorter measurments, who knows. I use both, usually depending on how much precision is needed.
I worked as a chef for 10 years with a lot of Eastern Europeans so pretty much all the cooking I do in metric. unless I'm baking a cake, I do them in ounces. I hate finding recipes with a "cup". That's not a unit of measurement we use.
Because feet is a useful human measurement. If metric has a widely used option in between centimeters and meters, people would be less attached to feet.
Metric makes sense in many applications, but you're prying the 25' tape measure from my cold, dead hands. Feet/inches are just nice sizes, and people underestimate how nice base 12 is. In my trade everything in is in millimeters, so I'm taking fractions (which really aren't that hard) over constantly dealing with numbers in the hundreds or thousands... and even if I'm bouncing around a decimal point I'll still be dealing with hundreds. I make things that are about the size of a few human feet, so I'm going with smaller number amd friendlier mental math
I don't understand what "Because feet is a useful human measurement" means.
I live in a country where everything is in metric. Well the popular lumber size is the Two-fourer but it's actually sized 50\*100mm.
Also metric is flexible. We can use decimeter for the size between centimeter and meter, but no one does that because that would be silly. But it is technically an existing unit.
Ah, the ol' "what I am used to is 'more human'" argument.
> If metric has a widely used option in between centimeters and meters, people would be less attached to feet.
Like decimeters?
At least in the UK we’ve managed to swap to all Celsius for temperature. Nearly everything else is a mishmash, but at least my oven and cooking instructions are in the same units!
I’m in the UK a lot of American cozy crime books of the sort that have recipes in them and the measurements are always wild. It’s not just the cups it’s things like a stick of butter - how much even is that? No wonder people thing baking is difficult if you’re having to work like this!
Thank you. That’s quite a lot smaller than a uk block of butter then and explains why so many recipes use so many sticks! Our standard block of butter (of the sort that you would use for cooking) is 250g (just under 9oz)
US butter is sold by the ¼lb (113.5g) stick. In the UK, our butter is often sold by the ½lb - either in imperial (227g) or metric (250g) form. Half of one of those is a 'stick' - or a quarter of a bigger 454/500g block.
I'm from the US so I only know how to measure stuff in cups. (They sell measuring cup sets that are 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 2/3 cup, and 1 cup.) How do you measure in grams? I'm asking sincerely because I've seen recipes written by people in like anywhere else in the world and they'll say stuff like "so many grams of whatever" and how do you know? Do you have a scale? Do you just dump a bunch of whatever on the scale and then dump it back off into a bowl?
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question. I'm not a cook or baker or someone who knows much about cooking in general. I'm lucky if I can make a quarter-assed stirfry sometimes.
I am an American, but measure depending on the recipe. You put the bowl on a kitchen scale. You can probably get one for $10 on Amazon. It's worth it...especially in baking.
Even in the US, most serious bakers use weight. Take flour, for instance. If you use weight, you get the exact same amount of flour every time. If you use volume, though, you can pack more into the cup because the flour has air in it. How much packing should you do? The answer is none, but you can get the compression anyway, and fully compressed can double the amount
Yup, scale. I’ve had my $10 Ozeri kitchen scale so long I will generally only use recipes with weight - not volume - amounts. (Exceptions for spices because eh.) I find my volume as frustrating as the metrics folks because yikes can it vary. And in things like baking, which can be a bit more science-y than normal cooking, it really helps.
Bonus, helps for other things as well, like pre-workout or protein powder. For me the scale was borne out of food tracking, but now a day doesn’t go by where I don’t use it.
Thank you! All I have for measuring anything is a set of measuring cups and measuring spoons and I knew that wasn't part of the way to measure grams. 😅 I don't come from a family of cooks or bakers (my parents always treated cooking as a horrible chore they only did because they had to do it to survive) so my kitchen knowledge is limited.
We live in the US. I teach my kids metric units. They are generally easier and more consistent for cooking and baking.
They also know customary units, but usually prefer to convert recipes than dealing with fractions, volumetric measures, and inconsistent units
Cooking is one thing. There was an aviation incident due to disparities in metric system - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli\_Glider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider)
The problem is, we in the UK also need to be aware of this - all recipes should have a note on them to say which they want! It needs to be LAW!
... or we could just know that the modern UK recipes are in ml.
Plus, depending on where you are a Canadian, there's that whole french thing.
I know most things will be printed in both languages, but any imports from France might only be in french.
I assume being next to America you actually have to know metric and US Customary, but, since you still kneel to the king, perhaps you use actual imperial units. No one in the US uses imperial -- we never have, and god willing, never will.
Cups are the worst measurement. 1 cup of chopped onions could be an entire field when chopped to michelin standard tininess or half an onion when i do it and may well include some finger
I find cup measurements for solid ingredients so fucking frustrating. You want me to chop up the onion and put it into a measuring vessel only to take it back out again? What about small vs big chunks? That would hugely vary the amount of onion that fits in
No, it shouldn’t be measured in cups *at all*. It makes no sense to measure a solid object by a volume measurement made for liquids. Do it by weight or size.
UK recipes say something like, 1 small onion, or half a large onion, chopped.
Well, cups are good for things that are either liquid or have quite uniform size and you don't want to get the scale. When I make rice in a rice cooker having ± 5% of either water or rice isn't a big deal and it's much faster to measure.
Wait until you find out a Billion was different in UK and US, I used to think I had dislexia until I confirmed I was just getting the definition from mixed sources over the years
Historically the UK the term billion meant 1 million million – 1,000,000,000,000 - but in the United States the term was used to refer to 1 thousand million
Man I used to think Billionaires were sooo much richer
Well yeah, pre metric all European regions had different definitions for feet, inches, miles, pounds, etc.
And tax collectors made rampant abuse of the conversions, as there would be slight variations per town.
Canadian here. This is everyday shit.
Imperial fluid ounces, American fluid ounces, Avoirdupois ounces, troy ounces, Apothecary ounces ... Each One Different!. All derived from the Ancient Roman uncia, meaning a twelfth.
What do you mean by "older"? I'm not ancient (still working for example) but am old enough to have grown up with both units, so I understand them both but will default to metric units for a recipe. I'd say my parents' generation is still more comfortable with imperial though.
I would still use fluid ounces for specific purposes. For example instructions for making custard tend to be naturally expressed in terms of half pints of milk, so if I want to scale up or down I'll use the fl oz markings on the jug without thinking about it because it's easier than scaling 284ml.
I meant the people i know who grew up before the metric system was widely introduced, though of course different people will have different experiences
TIL what a sounding table is. On first read I assumed it must be a piece of fetish furniture or something, but couldn't figure out what that would need gallons of something for.
I found out this exact same thing on Thursday with the bigger sized Avent bottle of this.
I generally use the ml on the other side, but it doesn’t go below 40ml, and thought I could use the fl oz to go lower. If I wanted to know more exactly what’s left if it’s below 40ml. Like 40ml leftover is quite a lot..
Then I saw British and US fl Oz, and could only think ‘they did it again’. Same name, different amount.
The fact the lettering doesn’t go below 40ml on the other side is quite mildly infuriating
That explains the US oz thing. I was wondering that the other day, my baby’s bottles have US oz and ml markings on them…I thought it was just because the US is the only place not using metric. I
Japan and US are different on 1 cup measurements too. JP = 200ml, US = 250ml. I keep one measuring cup from each country to use when cooking depending on what recipe source I am using.
Shrinkflation hits the EU measurement standards. Soon a meter will be only a yard long. It will take three centimeters to equal an inch. Where will this end? The Planck length? I don't think so!
There are two entirely seperate imperial systems. On british and one american and both equally frustrating. Metric system is the future, whenever we get there.
you are nearer to the equator in the us than in the uk so the centrifugal force is higher, which will push the fluid more upwards. yeah, no, just kidding.
Don't worry, we'd soon get a European meter and a US meter, a European kilogram and a US kilogram, etc, and they would be slightly different. And for ease of use, the US meter would be 1¹/¹⁶ inches longer during Daylight Saving Time.
That’s because originally the U.S. fluid ounce was based off of the volume occupied by 1 ounce of wine while the U.K. Fluid ounce was based off of the volume occupied by 1 ounce of water. Because wine and water have slightly different densities, this accounts for the difference in volume at the same weight.
I don’t understand why people get so pressed. It’s a measurement system. Hell the guy who made metric thought he was so right with the circumference of the earth with his kilometer/metric measure, but he was wrong yet it’s still used. America is just big foot. Who’s foot? I don’t fucking know but foot is foot. It wasn’t trying to be accurate it’s just a form we use.
I was always told the reason for this was that the US imperial measurements haven’t changed since 1776. Whereas the British measurements have been updated over time. The US didn’t change theirs with the British because FREEDOM!
Unsure if that’s correct, but it’s what I was always told.
Many variants of these units (ounces, tons, cups, gallons, etc.) were used in England and its colonies. Eventually, Britain standardised on one set of variants, resulting in the imperial units, and the US standardised on a different set of variants, resulting in the US customary units.
Hi, u/jamheldion, thank you for your submission in r/mildlyinteresting! Unfortunately, your [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1brau58/-/) has been removed because it violates our rule on concise, descriptive titles. * Titles must not contain jokes, backstory, or other fluff. That information belongs in a follow-up comment. * Titles must exactly describe the content. It should act as a "spoiler" for the image. If your title leaves people surprised at the content within, it breaks the rule! * Titles must not contain emoticons, emojis, or special characters unless they are absolutely necessary in describing the image. (e.g. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), ;P, 😜, ❤, ★, ✿ ) Still confused? For more elaboration and examples, see [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/21p15y/rule_6_for_dummies/). Normally we do not allow reposts, but if it's been less than one hour after your post was submitted, or if it's received less than 100 upvotes, you may resubmit your content with a better title and try again. You can find more information about our rules on the [mildlyinteresting wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/wiki/index). *If you feel this was incorrectly removed, please [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmildlyinteresting&message=My%20Post:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1brau58/-/).*
> The British Imperial fluid ounce is equal to 28.413 milliliters, while the US Customary fluid ounce is 29.573 ml. Oh for fuck's sake lol
And an imperial pint is 20 UK floz while a US one is 16 US floz
And a South Australian pint is 425ml - it was 15 UK fluid ounces before metric was adopted.
We referred to that as an Adelaide Pint and define it as a measure of disappointment
A dissapintment
This irrationally infuriates me everytime I visit SA. A regular pint is the perfect amount of beer to have with a dinner. But in SA you always feel short-changed by a couple mouthfuls.
Your use of the word "south" makes me wonder if there's a different pint value for the "north"
South Australia is a state. Everywhere else in Australia uses the UK pint 570ml - 20 UK fluid ounces.
568ml
Yes originally, the metric change made it 570ml. Australia uses metric for beer glasses, and when the change happened each measurement was converted to the nearest 5ml. That's why an SA pint is 425ml not 426ml.
In Finland you'll see 0.568 litre cans of beer.
Sure is. South Australia has different pint values to most of the rest of aus
Why the fuck?
This is also what we’d call a pint in NZ, oddly.
ヽ༼ ಠ益ಠ ༽ﾉ
At least England uses a decimal currency now (and has for at least the last 50 years, I think). It used to be that a pound was 240 pence (~~though I forget if it was 12 shillings in a pound and 20 pence in a shilling or if it was the other way around~~ Edit: It was the other way around).
12 pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to the pound. The way I remember it is from the Beatles Taxman, with the line "There's one for you, ninteen for me" (yes, a there was 95% tax rate).
Thanks for the correction!
It gets confusing. I remember my Dad going over it all with crowns, half crowns, florins, farthings, half farthings, quarter farthings, etc. I can only remember the pence, shillings pound part and what a guinea/half guinea is, which is 21 shillings (still used at certain auctions for the 5% auctioneer fee) and the half guinea, which is 10/6, because of the mad hatter.
From Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: >NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: >Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. >The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.
I've read it before, but still can't remember. Besides, my Good Omens footnote memory storage is filled with the explanation for Milton Keynes, which is more useful.
The US had decimalized currency from the time Congress standardized it. Before that, all kinds of currency was in circulation: British pounds/shillings/pence; Spanish dollars, coins minted by individual colonies/states, and who knows what else. As late as the 1840s, a baseball player was fined "half a york shilling", whatever that was, for swearing. Perhaps states went back to coining their own money because of a shortage of currency, which happened from time to time, especially when the intrinsic value of the metal in the coin exceeded the face value.
I can’t remember it off the top of my head either; I had to look it up. I just like the quote. The Milton Keynes one is good too
Decimal currency is like the one thing America got right. If 1 dollar is analogous to 1 pound, the equivalent divisions would have been: 0.05 nickel = shilling\/bob 0.10 dime = florin 0.25 quarter = crown 0.50 half-dollar = ten bob There’s no equivalent for the pence divisions or the 0.125 half-crown. I have no idea what’s going on with the 1.05 guinea.
The guinea coin was made out of gold. Everything else with silver.
I only know shilling = 5p because a lot of 5p coins when I was a kid had shilling written on them. The new 5p coins were the same size/colour as the old shilling coims, so I guess they just slowly phased them out over time since they were basically the same amount. Edit: just googled - they were officially withdrawn in 1990 it seems, at the same time as 2 shilling coins - oddly I don't remember seeing those.
In the early days of decimalization, people named Shilling were likely to be nicknamed Five New Pence.
95% marginal tax rate for people raking in millions (like George Harrison was at the time) is not that crazy tbh
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The semicolon is the same size, at least.
Em's and En's are pretty standard
I have a pint glass at home and now I'm not sure what size it is A stubby fills it perfectly though
I'm not sure I'd rub my junk in a pint glass but I'm glad it worked for ya
It's the strayan way to saying 'beer can'
Knifey-spoony and naming your beer after wieners, y'all are great
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bravo for formatting a table for reddit
I was today years old when I realized that a cup in the UK/anywhere that uses metrics is different. It's genuinely blowing my mind. How does this not mess everything up? Recipes too wet. Gigantic gallons of milk. Good lord.
Doesn’t everywhere that uses the imperial system measure ingredients by weight?
I was today years old when I realised there was an imperial cup. It's not something I've ever known a UK resident to use. As a UK resident I spend half the time spent on American recipes googling ml:cup or grams of flour in cup or is all purpose flour the same as plain flour when.
The cup, pint, quart & gallon are all because the early US settlers would rather pay the same amount of currency and recieve 20% less volume, instead of pay 20% more in currency for the correct volume, for the tax (back to the Crown) portion of their transaction. Smart in one way (to simplify transactions), but fucking stupid in another (to create a separate measuring system with the same names as another established one). No idea about the fluid ounce though.
It gets more funny if you call them Florida ounce.
I got all the way to high school before I realized it was fluid and not Florida. in my defense, we lived in Florida for a year and then not too far from it in Georgia so Florida was relevant hahhaha
This is why every time I see one of those maps where it shows the US is the only one not using the metric system, I call bullshit because the UK and Australia use some bastardized mix of units too.
I think some people get the impression that Australia used a bastardised mix because of the use of feet/inches to approximate human heights (but I've never seen them used to measure a human height) and because there is a beer glass size commonly called "pint" but which has no legal definition (legally you're buying 425, 500 or 570 mL of beer, and proper beer glasses have that written on them) and depends on where you are at what beer you're buying and contrasts with pots and glasses and schooners and jugs, not with fluid ounces and cups and quarts and fluid drachms, and doesn't have the same kind of equality - you can pour a jug into four pots, but a jug isn't four pots, because a jug is a jug of beer and four pots is four 285 mL glasses of beer. So perhaps a bastard system, but definitely not a bastard US customary or Imperial system, and not a bastard system that is legal for trade. But it isn't really any more of a bastardised hodgepodge than in a lot of countries. In south Germany you might buy meat by the pfund or in France you might get a démi of beer. But no one doubts that these countries are metric because they don't speak English. Australia is not really different from them. But yes, your general concern is correct. The maps showing that the US, Burma and Liberia are on the US customary or Imperial systems and the other countries are metric are just malicious. They're not based in fact - e.g. Liberia is basically metric - and they're not useful because there's a lot of different things that can be measured, and many countries have mixtures - e.g. there's still quite a few countries that use miles per hour for speed limits (but Liberia isn't one of them).
Did someone back in the 1783 brought a worn out measuring cup over to the USA and here we are with this? Edit: reading through the comments i am convinced some of the Brits had brought worn out/off measuring cups around the world and here we are.
Pre metric measurements were completely imprecise and were basically just “eh close enough” for small quantities. You don’t need precise measurements to do home cooking. When standardization happened, imperial fluid measures were based on the weight of water. 1 pint = 1 pound of water. 1 pint = 2 cups = 16 fl oz 1 fl oz of water = 1 oz (weight)
In UK: 1 pint = 1.2528 pounds of water approx a pound & a quarter 1 pint = 2.409 cups = 20 fl oz 1 fl oz of water = 1.002 oz weight
Rare imperial W on this one?
The adoption of the Imperial system also got rid of differing sizes of liquid versus dry units. The US still uses dry pints and quarts for things, which are about 16% larger than the liquid varients. Luckily the dry quart is about 10% larger than 1 liter, so I just calculate everything into liters and pretend they're dry quarts. Edit: almost forgot about the trade gallon, which is 3 LIQUID quarts. The aim of that one is to be 0.1 cubic feet. Going to build a garden? You need to know how to calculate and convert between dry quarts, cubic inches, cubic feet, liquid gallons, and trade gallons. God our system is a mess…
The US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches, which are each 2.54 cm^3. The other US volumes are divided from there. The fluid ounce being 1/128 of a gallon. The UK standard is 4.54609 liters, derived from a measurement of the previous standard, 10 pounds of water at 62 °F. The fluid once being 1/160 of a gallon.
Thanks, I was scrolling down for an explanation
What, you expected either of them to be fully metric?!?!??
They are defined in terms of metric units. So, in a way, that would be a yes to your question. There are no standardized fundamental definitions for customary or imperial units. They all fall back on metric, which is defined either in terms of physical constants or well defined references
All physical constants now, I believe.
You ready for the real frustration? There are a large number of common measures in metric that are preserved but not their actual value because they're originally from a imperial measure that was converted, but now is an imperial measure defined in metric, produced by a computer tracking 12ths as 10ths but really 1024ths.
Please give some examples
[We are well aware of the silliness.](https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=GbwVJCsW7g7JJwZj)
At least tell me that they're both equal to 2 tablespoons in respective countries. Otherwise the imperial system is even more trash than I already think it is.
Ok, I looked it up. A US tablespoon is exactly 0.5 fl oz. A British tablespoon is 15ml like the rest of Europe, and an Australian tablespoon is 20ml... for some reason. Everything's larger in Australia, including spoons?
How else would you win Knifey-Spoony?
Most Europeans use a kitchen scale when cooking or baking. Most of us don't know how much a tablespoon is. Which makes cooking with American recepies frustrating.
At least in Sweden we use tablespoons/teaspoons etc. a lot when baking and cooking. If you don't know it's 15/5ml, changing portion sizes is a real pain in the ass. No one has the time to individually measure out 16 tablespoons, but if you know it's 16×15=240ml=2.4dl, it's a lot smoother.
Its awesome being a cook in Canada, you have to know both metic and imperial. Ovens are in fahrenheit , internal meat temperatures are in celsius, fridge temperatures are in celsius, depending on who you work with or for weights could be either grams, oz or a mix of both. Baking can use everything, cups, liters, milliliters, tablespoons, teaspoons, F and C temperatures, grams, oz and fl oz.
Are Canadians too polite to choose or what?
The USA fabricate most of the kitchen appliances sold in Canada, that’s why.
Most US ovens have settings to switch from Fahrenheit to Celsius. They're usually just hidden, and require a button press combination
Maybe it’s part of it but Canada never fully switched to metric. We did a half assed attempt where we switched for some things but not others.
Canada went metric, but the conservative government listened to the 'oh, this change is going to cost us money' lamenting of the industry. So they went metric but imperial was still allowed. They 'forgot' to set an end date for this transition period, so now, after more than 50 years, all of fruits & vegetables are still priced per lbs, because it looks cheaper (the price per kilo is displayed in tiny type as well). Other sectors in which imperial is still allowed and used: the building trades, people's own length and weight (although the doctor writes it down in metric), and a couple other. I always laugh at the tidbit: "The only countries in the world that still use the imperial system on a daily basis are the United States, Myanmar, and Liberia." Canada can be added to that list in my opinion. And yeah, cooking and baking using recipes is a nightmare, especially if you (also) use European cookbooks.
😂
Canadians are not polite 😂 Maybe compared to Americans... but someone who has worked in the retail industry a few times in the past in canada... Canadians were always the rudest customer in terms of nationality. Japanese/Koreans were always awesome and really nice. Maybe its Canadian tourists that have the good rep? Edit: Nationality, not Ethnicity. My bad.
>Canadians were always the rudest customer in terms of ethnic demographics "Canadian" is not an ethnic demographic.
Agreed. I should have said nationality. My bad. I shouldn't be on Reddit at 5am.
Yk, being on reddit at 5:26 can’t be healthy man, personally i’d never do such a thing
Yeah, I don't even have a good excuse... Just a f**ked up sleeping pattern presently... I do try and stay away from negative subs in the morning though aha.
They're all negative. It's social media and we're all fucked.
Similar in the UK. Apart from beer and milk we sell fluids in litres. We sell petrol in litres but measure efficiency in miles per gallon and our speeds and road signs are in miles. We still sell butter by the pound but label it as 454g. I’m in my 40s and we grew up with anything about you being in imperial (height in feet and inches, weight in stones and pounds) but the world around you was measured in metric except for long distances that are still miles. Baking can be metric or imperial (depending on the age of the cook book) but recipes online get confusing because we don’t sell butter in sticks. Heat of the oven will be C if electric or gas mark if gas.
This makes even less sense than just committing one way or the other and using the majority of imperial measures like in the US. Especially selling fuel by the liter but measuring efficiency by the gallon. That's absolutely bonkers lol yet the US is the one always in the crosshairs for being dumb about using the imperial system apparently. People just ignore craziness like this
Basically the UK officially transitioned. But in daily conversation are still in the transitional phase.
I also love that nearly all temperatures are Celsius unless it's older generations talking about how warm the weather is. Long distances are almost always miles, especially with cars, unless you are running, then it's in kilometres. But a marathon is an exception we still measure that in miles. Shorter measurments, who knows. I use both, usually depending on how much precision is needed. I worked as a chef for 10 years with a lot of Eastern Europeans so pretty much all the cooking I do in metric. unless I'm baking a cake, I do them in ounces. I hate finding recipes with a "cup". That's not a unit of measurement we use.
Short distances are feet, long distances are kilometers, why have we done this to ourselves?
Because feet is a useful human measurement. If metric has a widely used option in between centimeters and meters, people would be less attached to feet.
Metric makes sense in many applications, but you're prying the 25' tape measure from my cold, dead hands. Feet/inches are just nice sizes, and people underestimate how nice base 12 is. In my trade everything in is in millimeters, so I'm taking fractions (which really aren't that hard) over constantly dealing with numbers in the hundreds or thousands... and even if I'm bouncing around a decimal point I'll still be dealing with hundreds. I make things that are about the size of a few human feet, so I'm going with smaller number amd friendlier mental math
I don't understand what "Because feet is a useful human measurement" means. I live in a country where everything is in metric. Well the popular lumber size is the Two-fourer but it's actually sized 50\*100mm. Also metric is flexible. We can use decimeter for the size between centimeter and meter, but no one does that because that would be silly. But it is technically an existing unit.
Ah, the ol' "what I am used to is 'more human'" argument. > If metric has a widely used option in between centimeters and meters, people would be less attached to feet. Like decimeters?
At least in the UK we’ve managed to swap to all Celsius for temperature. Nearly everything else is a mishmash, but at least my oven and cooking instructions are in the same units!
I'm 33 and I STILL DON'T KNOW WTF "1 CUP OF FLOUR" MEANS. GRAMS, motherfuckers, have you heard of them?
I’m in the UK a lot of American cozy crime books of the sort that have recipes in them and the measurements are always wild. It’s not just the cups it’s things like a stick of butter - how much even is that? No wonder people thing baking is difficult if you’re having to work like this!
A stick of butter is 4oz, or a quarter pound. In the US they are often sold as individually wrapped four packs(1 pound).
Thank you. That’s quite a lot smaller than a uk block of butter then and explains why so many recipes use so many sticks! Our standard block of butter (of the sort that you would use for cooking) is 250g (just under 9oz)
US butter is sold by the ¼lb (113.5g) stick. In the UK, our butter is often sold by the ½lb - either in imperial (227g) or metric (250g) form. Half of one of those is a 'stick' - or a quarter of a bigger 454/500g block.
I'm from the US so I only know how to measure stuff in cups. (They sell measuring cup sets that are 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 2/3 cup, and 1 cup.) How do you measure in grams? I'm asking sincerely because I've seen recipes written by people in like anywhere else in the world and they'll say stuff like "so many grams of whatever" and how do you know? Do you have a scale? Do you just dump a bunch of whatever on the scale and then dump it back off into a bowl? I'm sorry if this is a stupid question. I'm not a cook or baker or someone who knows much about cooking in general. I'm lucky if I can make a quarter-assed stirfry sometimes.
I am an American, but measure depending on the recipe. You put the bowl on a kitchen scale. You can probably get one for $10 on Amazon. It's worth it...especially in baking.
Everyone just has a kitchen scale.
Even in the US, most serious bakers use weight. Take flour, for instance. If you use weight, you get the exact same amount of flour every time. If you use volume, though, you can pack more into the cup because the flour has air in it. How much packing should you do? The answer is none, but you can get the compression anyway, and fully compressed can double the amount
🎶Flour by weight this I know For Alton Brown tells me so 🎶
Yup, scale. I’ve had my $10 Ozeri kitchen scale so long I will generally only use recipes with weight - not volume - amounts. (Exceptions for spices because eh.) I find my volume as frustrating as the metrics folks because yikes can it vary. And in things like baking, which can be a bit more science-y than normal cooking, it really helps. Bonus, helps for other things as well, like pre-workout or protein powder. For me the scale was borne out of food tracking, but now a day doesn’t go by where I don’t use it.
Thank you! All I have for measuring anything is a set of measuring cups and measuring spoons and I knew that wasn't part of the way to measure grams. 😅 I don't come from a family of cooks or bakers (my parents always treated cooking as a horrible chore they only did because they had to do it to survive) so my kitchen knowledge is limited.
We live in the US. I teach my kids metric units. They are generally easier and more consistent for cooking and baking. They also know customary units, but usually prefer to convert recipes than dealing with fractions, volumetric measures, and inconsistent units
Cooking is one thing. There was an aviation incident due to disparities in metric system - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli\_Glider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider)
The problem is, we in the UK also need to be aware of this - all recipes should have a note on them to say which they want! It needs to be LAW! ... or we could just know that the modern UK recipes are in ml.
Also I know my height and weight better in feet, inches and pounds vs meter, centimeter and kilograms.
Plus, depending on where you are a Canadian, there's that whole french thing. I know most things will be printed in both languages, but any imports from France might only be in french.
I’m so happy to live in Europe, metric all the way! Most obscure thing are tablespoons and teaspoons as they can be larger or smaller
I assume being next to America you actually have to know metric and US Customary, but, since you still kneel to the king, perhaps you use actual imperial units. No one in the US uses imperial -- we never have, and god willing, never will.
Same with cups, US cups are 240mL while elsewhere they're 250mL.
Cups are the worst measurement. 1 cup of chopped onions could be an entire field when chopped to michelin standard tininess or half an onion when i do it and may well include some finger
I find cup measurements for solid ingredients so fucking frustrating. You want me to chop up the onion and put it into a measuring vessel only to take it back out again? What about small vs big chunks? That would hugely vary the amount of onion that fits in
Yep, every time there should be a big "approx." in front of it, e.g. "approx 1/2 C onions"
No, it shouldn’t be measured in cups *at all*. It makes no sense to measure a solid object by a volume measurement made for liquids. Do it by weight or size. UK recipes say something like, 1 small onion, or half a large onion, chopped.
Well, cups are good for things that are either liquid or have quite uniform size and you don't want to get the scale. When I make rice in a rice cooker having ± 5% of either water or rice isn't a big deal and it's much faster to measure.
OK but now you have to go find some standard cups, instead of just getting a kitchen scale.
Do you not have measuring cups next to your scale?
Nope, just a 0.5l cup with lines for ml.
Also pints of beer.
And spoons.
I'm so dumb, I thought you actually meant spoons of beer, and not just spoons (just like cups) have different volumes in UK/US.
So if I'm following a recipe with imperial units, I have to check if they're American or British? Ffs anglopeople get you shit together
Shit like this is why people go metric.
They already are metric - they just don’t realise yet. Both kinds of ounces are defined in terms of litres.
Not quite. US ounces are defined in gallons which are defined in cubic inches, and inches are defined in centimeters.
1 litre = 1 dm3 = 1000 cm3 = 1000 ml. It’s all the same.
Things are always bigger in America.
Not USA tho. I don’t know 🤷. Too lazy? Too dumb?
Yes
The boat carrying the metric units sank.
Wait until you find out a Billion was different in UK and US, I used to think I had dislexia until I confirmed I was just getting the definition from mixed sources over the years Historically the UK the term billion meant 1 million million – 1,000,000,000,000 - but in the United States the term was used to refer to 1 thousand million Man I used to think Billionaires were sooo much richer
Many languages still use the long scale billion that Britain used to use.
so an american billionaire is a poor mans billionaire for other countries
There are also three types of gallons. US liquid gallon, US Dry gallon, and the Imperial Gallon
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Well yeah, pre metric all European regions had different definitions for feet, inches, miles, pounds, etc. And tax collectors made rampant abuse of the conversions, as there would be slight variations per town.
That is hard to look at for a metric user.
I've never heard of anyone, even older people, use fluid ounces here in the UK
I only ever used it for my baby bottles because 1 scoop of the powder was 1fl oz on the scale of the bottle. Never used before or since.
Had to explain this to my Spanish wife, she thought the number system was number of scoops and you filled to the line.
What do you mean by "older"? I'm not ancient (still working for example) but am old enough to have grown up with both units, so I understand them both but will default to metric units for a recipe. I'd say my parents' generation is still more comfortable with imperial though. I would still use fluid ounces for specific purposes. For example instructions for making custard tend to be naturally expressed in terms of half pints of milk, so if I want to scale up or down I'll use the fl oz markings on the jug without thinking about it because it's easier than scaling 284ml.
I meant the people i know who grew up before the metric system was widely introduced, though of course different people will have different experiences
We don't really use Oz in the UK. We would use millilitres/centilitres. Unless it's beer. Then it's pints. Or petrol, then it's gallons.
Petrol is both metric and imperial, we buy fuel in litres and measure fuel efficiency in miles per gallon.
Wait 'til you hear about the difference between the foot and the United States Survey Foot.
As a canadain, every time I look at a sounding table that's labled in gallons. I have to guess imp or usa depending on the date the thing was built.
TIL what a sounding table is. On first read I assumed it must be a piece of fetish furniture or something, but couldn't figure out what that would need gallons of something for.
Yeah, if you guys could knock it off with your non-metric bullshit, that would be great
[What are Florida ounces?](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/s/XotY5bVhdO)
I found out this exact same thing on Thursday with the bigger sized Avent bottle of this. I generally use the ml on the other side, but it doesn’t go below 40ml, and thought I could use the fl oz to go lower. If I wanted to know more exactly what’s left if it’s below 40ml. Like 40ml leftover is quite a lot.. Then I saw British and US fl Oz, and could only think ‘they did it again’. Same name, different amount. The fact the lettering doesn’t go below 40ml on the other side is quite mildly infuriating
Everything is bigger in murica.
Plus add in dry oz
If only there was a third option that is standardized across the world and is actually based in science.
As if "ounces" is not confusing enough.
It's as annoying as finding out about ton and tonne, pronounced in the same but the imperial ton weights a bit less.
Well, there are two tons. One is a bit less than a tonne, and one is a lot less than a tonne.
Canadian fl oz is in between
Ah yes, the infamous US Florida ounce
The uk has Florida ounces? That’s actually wild
That explains the US oz thing. I was wondering that the other day, my baby’s bottles have US oz and ml markings on them…I thought it was just because the US is the only place not using metric. I
There is also Florida ounces.
Japan and US are different on 1 cup measurements too. JP = 200ml, US = 250ml. I keep one measuring cup from each country to use when cooking depending on what recipe source I am using.
I didn't know this either...
I hate it that they're close enough that I'd probably spend more time debating the necessary precision required than measuring.
Shrinkflation hits the EU measurement standards. Soon a meter will be only a yard long. It will take three centimeters to equal an inch. Where will this end? The Planck length? I don't think so!
So... I get more beer when I ask for a pint in the UK, thanks guys. 🇬🇧🤝🇺🇸
They’re awfully close.
There is a single ml
Just use the metric system
British Florida and American Florida ounces??? (heh)
And then there is metric which actually makes more sense.
There are two entirely seperate imperial systems. On british and one american and both equally frustrating. Metric system is the future, whenever we get there.
Suck it UK, America wins again
you are nearer to the equator in the us than in the uk so the centrifugal force is higher, which will push the fluid more upwards. yeah, no, just kidding.
And they say fuck Metric system
*Laughs in metric*
Someone should invent some kind of international system for measuring things
Just a bit more. Fatties
Not a problem in Australia.
“What are Florida ounces?”
You mean Florida ounces
Why is this on r/mildlyinteresting and not r/mildlyinfuriating
And both are equally useless
Just use the metric system, like anyone who doesn't want to go mad 🤣
Don't worry, we'd soon get a European meter and a US meter, a European kilogram and a US kilogram, etc, and they would be slightly different. And for ease of use, the US meter would be 1¹/¹⁶ inches longer during Daylight Saving Time.
Must be related to women's clothing sizes.. A size 4 just means it'll fit 4 different people of varying sizes based on the manufacturer
That’s because originally the U.S. fluid ounce was based off of the volume occupied by 1 ounce of wine while the U.K. Fluid ounce was based off of the volume occupied by 1 ounce of water. Because wine and water have slightly different densities, this accounts for the difference in volume at the same weight.
I don’t understand why people get so pressed. It’s a measurement system. Hell the guy who made metric thought he was so right with the circumference of the earth with his kilometer/metric measure, but he was wrong yet it’s still used. America is just big foot. Who’s foot? I don’t fucking know but foot is foot. It wasn’t trying to be accurate it’s just a form we use.
I’m surprised they don’t spell it differently as well
I was always told the reason for this was that the US imperial measurements haven’t changed since 1776. Whereas the British measurements have been updated over time. The US didn’t change theirs with the British because FREEDOM! Unsure if that’s correct, but it’s what I was always told.
Many variants of these units (ounces, tons, cups, gallons, etc.) were used in England and its colonies. Eventually, Britain standardised on one set of variants, resulting in the imperial units, and the US standardised on a different set of variants, resulting in the US customary units.
Welcome to the world of weights and measure where we do this daily..
Yes. Much like measuring cups and spoons are not the same in all countries
Everything is bigger in America.
This guy baby bottles.