Hacker News Reader

Comment by shiroiuma | Hacker News Reader

>with a couple others ones in a handful of countries still using something called « imperial units ».

The only country I know of offhand that uses "imperial units" is the UK.

There's a different, but similar (and sometimes overlapping) system called "US Customary Units" that's used in the US. Imperial pints and gallons are NOT the same as US pints and gallons.

View on HN

Thanks ! Sorry I overlooked this. Did a little research and I think the most confusing in this is the ton. At least, pints, gallons and miles have a different name than the metric unit and are way different than their SI equivalent. Not close by around 10%, one more (the long ton) and one less (the short ton). A perfect way to get the wrong quantity of a thing without noticing it at first. And if that’s not confusing enough, using « long » and « short » for a mass unit..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne

the UK pint is bigger than the US pint. Know this before visiting and it could just save you a hangover.

The now relatively uncommon UK gallon is the volume occupied by ten lbs of water in the same way a litre of water weighs a kilogram. Not only are the pints bigger there’s also twenty ounces (also rarely used now) in them which means a fluid ounce of water weighs by definition an ounce in the imperial system.

Though they like to pretend otherwise, there's still quite a bit of non metric use in Canada.

We use a mix of everything in the UK, although metric is common in many areas where it matters.

As a US observer, my favorite UK unit is the stone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(unit)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com