Thread: God Save the Queen!

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

1. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary'). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.' '

They forgot "ummmm" as one of those fillers! Thank you gRomoZeka for a great laugh. I enjoyed the humour very much.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Haha... Life would be a bit simpler if they could also use metric and Celsius... Imperial measurements are such a nightmare to learn.

Hanna, I believe I mentioned before in some odd thread that I can clearly recall being forced to learn metric in grade school. Being told by my teacher that we were converting to Metric any day now and we must learn it! Let's see, I don't really want to say how old I am... but... the pyramids were still be built when I was in school and here we are no closer to being on the metric system that I now no longer remember yet... it is in our cars so we can think we are going way faster than we actually are!

Originally Posted by rockzmom

I can clearly recall being forced to learn metric in grade school.

I think that apart from an understandable desire to follow their own traditions people are generally averse to metric system because they think it's something incredibly complex. It is not! You can learn metric system in 5 minutes flat, that's why it was invented - because of it simplicity (and for uniformity purposes, of course).

You use grams to measure weight and meters to measure length, and that's it (no overlapping yards, foots and whatnot, that drive crasy international students).
There are a few prefixes to make the use of it more comfortable and avoid such mouthfuls as "I need 230 thousands of grams of sand": kilo- (1000 times bigger), deci- (10 times smaller), centi- (100 times smaller), milli- (1000 times smaller).

Thus you get kilometers (1000 m), meters, decimeters (0.1 m), centimeters (0.01 m), millimeters (0.001 m) to measure lengths, and kilograms (1000 g), grams and milligrams (0.001 g) to measure weights.

It really aligns nicely with the decimal numeration we use, isn't it? I think kids in America would have less problems with math if they were used to metric system in everyday life. )

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

I think that apart from an understandable desire to follow their own traditions people are generally averse to metric system because they think it's something incredibly complex. It is not! You can learn metric system in 5 minutes flat, that's why it was invented - because of it simplicity (and for uniformity purposes, of course).

You use grams to measure weight and meters to measure length, and that's it (no overlapping yards, foots and whatnot, that drive crasy international students).
There are a few prefixes to make the use of it more comfortable and avoid such mouthfuls as "I need 230 thousands of grams of sand": kilo- (1000 times bigger), deci- (10 times smaller), centi- (100 times smaller), milli- (1000 times smaller).

Thus you get kilometers (1000 m), meters, decimeters (0.1 m), centimeters (0.01 m), millimeters (0.001 m) to measure lengths, and kilograms (1000 g), grams and milligrams (0.001 g) to measure weights.

It really aligns nicely with the decimal numeration we use, isn't it? I think kids in America would have less problems with math if they were used to metric system in everyday life. )

The old joke says, "a physician believes there are 1000 bytes in 1 kilobyte, and a programmer believes there are 1024 grams in 1 kilogram". These metric systems seem a bit artificial to me too, they're all bound to the decimal numeral system. I bet anyone who gets used to pounds and miles/feet won't ever be thinking of getting back to kilograms and kilometers.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

I bet anyone who gets used to pounds and miles/feet won't ever be thinking of getting back to kilograms and kilometers.

Same can be said the other way around. It only proves that people do not like changes.

I have tried to bake according to Imperial and it's really hard!

I'm a bit surprised by this comment -- I don't think there's anything intrinsically harder about baking in Imperial than baking in metric!

Well, admittedly, it could be difficult if you were trying to follow an old Victorian-era cookbook that called for "a gill of milk" (~0.1 L) or "a half-peck of apples" (~4.5 L). But I can guarantee you that in any modern (post-WWI) American recipe, almost everything will be measured by the "standard cup" (~240 mL) or fractions of a cup -- or for flavorings used in very small quantities, such as black pepper or ground mustard seed or oil of peppermint, by the "standard teaspoon" (~5 mL).

There are exceptions to this: fresh meats, such as beef or chicken, are usually measured by weight. And butter is measured sometimes by weight and sometimes by volume, so that one recipe may call for "a quarter-pound of butter", while another recipe calls for "a half-cup butter" -- yet the amount of butter is the same in both cases.

On the other hand, I agree that trying to convert an Imperial recipe to a metric recipe can be tricky -- for example, if you have a US recipe for chocolate cake that gives the oven temperature in Fahrenheit, but you're in a UK kitchen and the oven has Celsius or "gas marks". Also, granular or powder ingredients (flour, sugar, rice) are invariably measured by volume (cups) in American recipes, but by weight (grams) in many European recipes.

However, if you're using an American cake recipe with standard American measuring cups and an American stove, than "baking with Imperial units" is as simple as can be!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

However, if you're using an American cake recipe with standard American measuring cups and an American stove, than "baking with Imperial units" is as simple as can be!

It does not seem so easy when you live in a country with different standard cups. )) The Russian segment of Internet is filled with cries of distraught Russian women: "How many grams are in a cup"? There's also a lot of hatred towards sticks of butter and ambiguous "portions" on the backs of American food boxes.

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

It does not seem so easy when you live in a country with different standard cups. )) The Russian segment of Internet is filled with cries of distraught Russian women: "How many grams are in a cup"? There's also a lot of hatred towards sticks of butter and ambiguous "portions" on the backs of American food boxes.

To these women, I strongly recommend this site: The Metric Kitchen -- it includes a rather detailed table of cup/gram equivalents for non-liquid ingredients. 1 cup of flour = 120 g, 1 cup of white sugar = 200 g, 1 cup of butter = 240 g.

Also, note that in the US, a "stick" of butter is completely standardized: 1 stick = 1/2 cup = 8 Tablespoons = 1/4 pound = 240 grams.

But I agree that the "portions" on American food containers are ridiculous, and almost always too small for a normal adult. (Obviously, they use small portion sizes to make the food seem lower in fat and calories. But sometimes, foods that are naturally low in fat/calories will use unrealistically large portions to make the amount of fiber, proteins, and vitamins seem higher.)

Originally Posted by Eric C.

The old joke says, "a physician believes there are 1000 bytes in 1 kilobyte, and a programmer believes there are 1024 grams in 1 kilogram". ...

Originally Posted by Eric C.

The old joke says, "a physician believes there are 1000 bytes in 1 kilobyte, and a programmer believes there are 1024 grams in 1 kilogram". These metric systems seem a bit artificial to me too, they're all bound to the decimal numeral system. I bet anyone who gets used to pounds and miles/feet won't ever be thinking of getting back to kilograms and kilometers.

We may make fun of the Americans all the way long, but recently I found myself in a similar situation. Actually nowadays, 1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes exactly, and to add to the confusion they introduced us a Kibibyte which will have 1024 bytes.

In December 1998, the IEC addressed these dual definitions of the conventional prefixes by creating unique binary prefixes and prefix symbols to denote multiples of 1024, such as “kibibyte (KiB)”, which exclusively denotes 210 or 1024 bytes. With consistent adoption, this would liberate the standard unit prefixes to unambiguously refer only to their strict decimal definitions, wherein kilobyte would be understood to represent only 1000 bytes. However, adoption by the computer industry has been slow, leaving the exact meaning of a unit ambiguous.


I find the idea rather revolting and I understand the Americans perfectly. To them, thinking that distances are measured in kilometers instead of miles is the same as thinking that there is 1000 bytes in one kilobyte to me. A blasphemy indeed!

Originally Posted by Ramil

We may make fun of the Americans all the way long, but recently I found myself in a similar situation. Actually nowadays, 1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes exactly, and to add to the confusion they introduced us a Kibibyte which will have 1024 bytes.

In December 1998, the IEC addressed these dual definitions of the conventional prefixes by creating unique binary prefixes and prefix symbols to denote multiples of 1024, such as “kibibyte (KiB)”, which exclusively denotes 210 or 1024 bytes. With consistent adoption, this would liberate the standard unit prefixes to unambiguously refer only to their strict decimal definitions, wherein kilobyte would be understood to represent only 1000 bytes. However, adoption by the computer industry has been slow, leaving the exact meaning of a unit ambiguous.


I find the idea rather revolting and I understand the Americans perfectly. To them, thinking that distances are measured in kilometers instead of miles is the same as thinking that there is 1000 bytes in one kilobyte to me. A blasphemy indeed!

And I doubt the computer industry will ever adopt this. There are limits to use of this metric stuff, and what you're talking about is certainly out of those limits. Let the people be people, the metric people be metric people, and the computers be computers.