[Rant] The hardest thing to explain to ESL/EFL students.

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J

JCM

Really, after working in 17 countries as an English teacher, I have yet to find a single group of non-English speakers that get the measurements used in America, and are able to use it (in some cases, some even refuse to believe such measurements exist).

Really, can anyone tell my why these even exist anymore?
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blotsfan

blotsfan

I get the issues with the english system, but I will always defend the date. When someone asks you what the date is, you'd say "November 24th, 2012." I guess you could say "The 24th of November, 2012" but I can't imagine someone actually saying that without trying to sound ridiculous.
 
WasabiPoptart

WasabiPoptart

The military (at least I know the Navy does) always uses day, month, year when writing dates. I've gotten used to seeing it and hearing it just like military time.
 
strawman

strawman

Take, for example, http://www.neowin.net/news/nasa-it-would-cost-370-million-dollars-to-conver-to-metric

The best course of action is for the various industries to start using metric on new products as the old products fall away, and in fact that's what many of them are doing, NASA included.

But we can't simply switch over at one time, and while its been many decades in process, it can still be cheaper to design and manufacture a product in imperial units, so a lot of new designs still use imperial.

It would cost trillions to force the issue, and there's an argument regarding whether the US government has the authority to force the states to force individuals and businesses to stop using the imperial system.

I suggest that if its such an international problem, then other nations impose trade sanctions on the US until we adopt it.

Otherwise, who cares?

No one seems to have a problem with telling time and date, and that system is just as odd. If they don't want to learn imperial teach them how to use a conversion calculator.
 
Terrik

Terrik

I don't even bother anymore. After 5 years in China, I said screw it, and went along with the metric system.

IT'S A FINE 14 DEGREES TODAY. I THINK I SHALL WEAR A LIGHT JACKET.
 
strawman

strawman

North_Ranger said:
You people are seriously f***ed up... :p
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Oh? So you'd be fine with the EU imposing anything they like on Finland? You've joined the EU in order to gain some of the benefits of a union, but surely you don't want to cede your government to the committees of the EU?
 
North_Ranger

North_Ranger

Staff member
I said that jokingly, stien ol' boy. Calm down, stress reduces sperm levels. And you're still a little short for a full a cappella choir :p[DOUBLEPOST=1353807086][/DOUBLEPOST]That being said... my apologies if I insulted. That was not my intention.
 
Frank

Frank

Man, it was -12 today. That's chilly no matter where you go.

And a person can shit on America all it wants for Imperial measurements, Britain will always be worse for continuing to use stones as a measurement for mass.

Oy, that fat bloke is 13 stone, he is.

IS THAT A LOT?

I don't fucking know!

I think it may be, because he used the word fat.

It's 182 pounds, that's not that big.

Maybe he's only 1/12 of a chain tall.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

From what I understand, 15-16 stone is obese for an average sized person. Then again, I only know that form of measurement from watching the Fat Fighters sketches on Little Britain.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
Another impediment to change is pretty simple. How often do you need to convert feet to miles or--even less likely--yards to miles? How often do you need to convert meters to kilometers in daily life? Arguments about how difficult conversion is fall on deaf ears because it's fairly irrelevant.
 
Siska

Siska

Guess that depends on what you do for a living. For some knowing that a cubic decimeter equals one liter and that one liter of water weighs approximately (depending on temperature) one kilogram might be very handy in their day to day life. Even better, it's easy to calculate other measurements as well because they are all based on the number 10. And it's the same everywhere, all over the world. While for example an English gallon (and other measurements) is not the same size as an American gallon.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
At this point, I think we continue to use it merely because our cultural dominance coupled with a strange measurement system continues to irritate the rest of the world :troll:

Celsius is WAY more stupid than Fahrenheit, however. I like my temperature scale of 0-100 to be based on human tolerances instead of water's tolerances.

Fahrenheit:
0 = Really freakin cold, bundle up
100 = Really freakin hot, drink lots/strip down

Celsius:
0 = Rather cold I guess, probably want a coat
100 = You and everything else died dozens of degrees ago. Why even measure this high?
 
Frank

Frank

GasBandit said:
At this point, I think we continue to use it merely because our cultural dominance coupled with a strange measurement system continues to irritate the rest of the world :troll:

Celsius is WAY more stupid than Fahrenheit, however. I like my temperature scale of 0-100 to be based on human tolerances instead of water's tolerances.

Fahrenheit:
0 = Really freakin cold, bundle up
100 = Really freakin hot, drink lots/strip down

Celsius:
0 = Rather cold I guess, probably want a coat
100 = You and everything else died dozens of degrees ago. Why even measure this high?
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Dumb. 0 being the freezing point of water, that's stupid. BRINE SHOULD BE 0!
 
Jax

Jax

GasBandit said:
Celsius is WAY more stupid than Fahrenheit, however. I like my temperature scale of 0-100 to be based on human tolerances instead of water's tolerances.

Fahrenheit:
0 = Really freakin cold, bundle up
100 = Really freakin hot, drink lots/strip down
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Do you feel the same with other measurements as well, like measuring speed? Instead of using mph, how about going from "0 = Really freakin slow" to "100 = Really freakin fast" ;)
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

GasBandit said:
Fahrenheit:
0 = most places won't ever get here except somewhere in the middle of the night in winter.
100 = somewhere in the neighbourhood of having a fever, butn ot quite there yet.

Celsius:
0 = Time to put on those snow tires, drove more carefully.
100 = Hey, water for your tea is ready
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FTFY


Really, each measurement scale for temperature has its own benefits. It's simply kinda useless to use the same system for weather, for human body temperature, for cooking, in chemistry, etc. In each use, you have a different need for precision (is it 10.1 or 10.2 out? I don't care), different averages, different expected ranges.
Celsius fits into the metric system, with one liter of water being one kilogram and one cubic decimeter at sea level.

And why is it useful to have a metric system? Because I can tell you exactly how much weight a roof needs to be able to carry if you tell me it has to be able to take 10 cm of water per m² at a time (100 kg per m²) or 100 liters at a time (still 100kg) or whatever. If I ask you how much weight is involved if there's 3 inches of water on a square yard, or 20 gallons of water per 10 square foot - happy calculating.

It's EASIER.

And, stienman, for the record, I'd gladly kill off Belgium and give half of its powers to the EU :p
 
Tress

Tress

We'll think about switching to the metric system when everyone in the world drives on the right side of the road, as it should be.
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

Jax said:
Do you feel the same with other measurements as well, like measuring speed? Instead of using mph, how about going from "0 = Really freakin slow" to "100 = Really freakin fast" ;)
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Considering people interact with 0 mph a lot more than they interact with Absolute 0, I don't get your point.
 
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