Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Measuring



(via reddit)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL!

As I understand it, they measure their car tires (tyres) the same way we do here in the US, with the diameter in inches, and the width in millimeters.

WilliamRocket said...

I bet you thought I would comment.

Anonymous said...

275 K and sunny here today.

Patty O'Heater said...

Too many missing measurements for the Brits. What about quart, gill, minim, rod, furlong, bushel, peck, pennyweight, scruple, grain? I could go on.....& on.

Anonymous said...

Proof that we're smarter than everyone who can only operate with one system.

newton said...

My understanding is that they measure their car's efficiency in Miles per gallon -- kind of like the US does, except their gallon is bigger than the US gallon, so their car's MPG numbers are higher than US MPG numbers.

So if you know your car gets 20 miles per gallon, and you want to go 200 miles, you need at least 10 gallons. So you go to the petrol station, where they sell gasoline...in liters.

WilliamRocket said...

In a league of your own, Patty.
I felt morally obliged, Kolo.
That's litres, Newton, liters are for cigarettes.

Bicycle Bill said...

Why would you spell the volume measure litre in that manner (t, r, e) when the other measure in the metric system, the meter, is spelled t, e, r?

And the idea of a 'liter' being for cigarettes is just stupidity (or misspelling) that has become codified through persistent use.

Come to think of it, maybe that's why the Brits spell things differently, like using an 's' in place of a 'z' in certain words, or their insistence in throwing the odd 'u' in between the 'o' and the 'r' in words like colour, flavour, honour, or neighbour.  Someone couldn't spell correctly and – rather than admit their error – insisted that it was the alternate, British spelling. (grin)

Anonymous said...

I wondre if a British watre metre measures litres? Perhaps petre would know.

Andy said...

We don't like to admit it, but a lot of English spelling, such as '-ise' and 'metre' is because French was very fashionable in the late 18th/early 19th century and we changed our spelling accordingly. I think 'color', however, was a result of Webster's American dictionary.