Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?

[adrianlondon]

Almost every other country in the world, including China.

There are 7.4 billion people in the world, 3 countries do not use Metric. 2 of them are third world.

I'm aware of that. My comment was a (failed, obviously) attempt at a joke on the difference between a US and UK billion. The fact you used the non-UK definition of billion ticked me (and by the way the entire world's population is less than the number I typed!).

 

[C DM]

The difference is that thread derived and is about four years old. Also, 12h VS 24h is actually not a big problem in my opinion, as both make sense. The points I mentioned are what I think is most important.

That's actually a kind of response I wanted to hear. More precision is a good thing, though I'd still prefer something simpler like Celcius.

I understand that, but when you isolate the date itself, it becomes confusing. That's what I don't like about it. Then again, the fact that you say May 8th instead of 8th May is confusing in the language on its own (though it's weird, because even though Canada says "May 8th", everyone still writes 08/05/2016, which means that even if the spoken and written shortened forms don't match, it will still work).

That thread, despite the title, covers quite a bit more than just the timing, touching upon various things brought up here, and has been under a fair amount of discussion recently as well.

 

[mac666er]

I mean no disrespect to anyone here. I do find this thread amusing, not because of the members involved but the human nature that it reflects.

I grew up in a metric system country, then migrated to the UK and found all of their conventions bizarre (units, language and specially food, but yeah, that stone for weight is way bizarre) and then migrated to the US.

By now, I do a number of conversions on my head for a number of things on a DAILY basis. My work is also international in nature and so I can't "ditch" my old units that I grew up with for all american ones.

ALL measurement units are arbitrary. Absolutely all of them. And they are conventions, which in the strictest sense of the word, means there was a convention/gathering of some sort to agree to start using them.

Most people get annoyed when a new convention is adopted and the old one is thrown out. So, the new units are used only when it is easer to use.

The reason Americans tried to change, but couldn't, is because usage and convention is not needed yet. No one in Tokyo wants to know the weather in Oklahoma. No one in Moscow buys a gallon of milk from Kansas. The moment that this kind of usage is needed, Americans will change.

I was involved in such a change before. I worked in the stock market in the US when the units for fractional stock prices where changed from fractions (American) to decimals (world). It took the US TWO HUNDRED years to adopt this change. The change was done because more precision was needed that the fractions used at the time could provide, and rather than adopting smaller fractions, the US adopted decimals to CONFORM with world trade:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=89457

I personally would love to see metric units in the US, but I get why they don't like it. But do you know which units are really, really, really screwed up? DATE and TIME. No, not the formats, that is screwed up too, but more importantly the units.

Why is it that there are 24 hours in a day and not 100? Why is it that there is 7 days in a week and not 10? Why is it that February has 28 days and the rest 30 or 31? Why is it called February to begin with? How do you know which months have 30 and which ones don't?

All of this is started with Mesopotamians, thinking 60 was THE number: 60 minutes, 60 seconds, 30 (60/2) days in a month, 12 (60/5) hours in a day, 360 (60 * 6) days in a year (back then!). All of them wrong by our measurements now.

It has been 5,000 years since and we still can't get over it. The system has been patched, time, and time, and time again, but no one "dares" to change the convention, because you can imagine the backlash. The sad part is that there has been mostly politics and religion involved, so imagine trying to change that.

This will change when usage is needed. When we see that we need to measure time in more convenient forms, especially now that we have started to navigate the solar system and a terran day doesn't make a lot of sense, maybe we will finally be able to get rid of cumbersome dates.

 

[Crazy Badger]

It's not because 330m people would find it difficult, it's that a great percentage would find it impossible. Move away from the coasts and a large majority of Americans are struggling to count without using their fingers

 

[adrianlondon]

It's not because 330m people would find it difficult, it's that a great percentage would find it impossible. Move away from the coasts and a large majority of Americans are struggling to count without using their fingers

Of which they have 12?

 

[bunnspecial]

ALL measurement units are arbitrary. Absolutely all of them.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

 

[5684697]

Okay guys, this is probably my angry 1 AM self again posting here, but this is something that has been bothering me for a few weeks now. I am posting it here because I know this is a website primarily of American people, and I don't know who else to rant this about.


Okay, first off, temperature. We all know what the three useful temperature measurements are. Only one is used in daily use, it's Celsius, and across the entire world. It is the most logical of the three, 0° is water's freezing point, 100° is its boiling point, every semi-educated person knows that. Only THREE countries use Fahrenheit exclusively, and surprise surprise, the United States is one of them. Why? Why is that necessary? Why use a system that is absolutely outdated, makes no sense whatsoever (water freezes at 32° and melts at 212°? yeah, totally makes sense), that is used by basically no one else? Even, excuse me for this term, stubborn countries like the United Kingdom now use Celsius exclusively and primarily. Even Canada, and its influence of the country did not force it to keep Fahrenheit. It annoys me because every time someone says "it's 60° outside!" I have to google and convert it because that means nothing for me, and I don't communicate enough with Americans to bother learning it. I could get away with it if it was something that was used interchangeably in multiple countries, but it isn't, it's outdated.

Second, measurement units. On one hand, you have the most logical system on the planet, the metric system. Simple, each unit correlates with each other, and there are basic prefixes which simply divide or multiply the numbers by multiples of 10. And I will be blunt here, the imperial units are more intuitive and are still somewhat logical. However, once you want to do anything slightly more complex, it becomes annoying. You can't do anything with a system like that. You have to learn the massive amount of words and how each of them correspond with each other. Imagine instead of having to use Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes, you would instead use Floppies, Discs, Drives, and Servers. It seems like the logical option, but they do not work together well at all and you gotta remember all of that crap. Once again, only the United States along with two other small countries exclusively use this system. In fact, when I thought that the United Kingdom was responsible for the same thing, it turns out it's technically the main measurement system of today (even though many people still use the other one), so I've actually gotta give them credit for having the guts to defy a traditional system. Every commonwealth country has adopted the SI, even if some like Canada still offer it occasionally. Seriously, why do this? Sure, I can deal with that, it's not like it's stupid or anything, but NOT when it's officially only used in a SINGLE GODDAMN COUNTRY (I'm excluding minor countries here because they are usually very small and have very little influence on the rest of the world).

Finally, this one pisses me off so much I just want to die. The date system. The entire world uses one or the other, either a DD/MM/YYYY system (common in European countries), either a YYYY/MM/DD system (common in East-Asian countries and some other places). Both are perfectly fine, as they represent a proper level of importance. What is NOT fine is when a single country just comes to troll everybody and bring a MM/DD/YYYY system, which completely messes up the order of the dates. The month, then a small part of the month, and then the year which the month takes place in? WHAT? How does that make any sense? WHY IS THAT NECESSARY? WHY THE ILLOGICALITY? I can bear with a January 1st, 2016 date system because it is closer to being a feature of the language, but not when it's a purely written form! At least use YYYY/MM/DD if you want to keep the M/D part! Seriously!


Okay, I understand that this was a bit blunt. But I can't accept that. I can't accept a country where there are people so lazy to adopt systems that are, by far, much more convenient than whatever is present, especially considering we are in 2016 and no improvement has been made to this date. And not to mention I'm sure there will be some idiots defending this system saying that "we are not sheeple to follow other people like that!". Well, uh, then you're sheeple to your own ****ing community. Any thoughts? Sure, you may call be brainwashed if that's what you believe, but I'd just like to point out that even though I grew up in a 24h system and I completely switched to 12h. And now I'm (partially) back at 24h. During this whole time, I barely spent any time outside. How exactly can you prove this against me if that's your intent? Anyway, any reasonable and non-biased explanations and/or defenses? Thank you.

Get. A. Life!

We should all do what aviation does, use knots and nautical miles, which make sense for the coordinate system used on earth.
[doublepost=1462731054][/doublepost]

Almost every other country in the world, including China.

There are 7.4 billion people in the world, 3 countries do not use Metric. 2 of them are third world.

http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/metric-map-which-countries-dont-belong-with-the-others/


And amongst those who do not use metric, you don't even use the same measures for gallons and who even knows what else.

Every single one of those countries did not start out with Metric, every single one of them managed to convert.

And what do those grid lines on your chart signify? What's that? Nautical miles as related to minutes of latitude? How about that!

 

[Tech198]

It's not because 330m people would find it difficult, it's that a great percentage would find it impossible. Move away from the coasts and a large majority of Americans are struggling to count without using their fingers

That's true, since most would use their iPhone's for that. who needs fingers to count these days.

 

[bunnspecial]

And what do those grid lines on your chart signify? What's that? Nautical miles as related to minutes of latitude? How about that!

Oh my goodness, it's also a horribly inaccurate and badly distorted Mercator projection!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Yeah, the date system doesn't defy logic at all. It's a one-to-one mapping between how it's said and how it's written.

Actually, it does defy logic. This form may be how it is spoken in everyday speech, but it is more logical to run a sequence of dates from small to large, (or vice versa) when putting them in writing.

The problem with the US system is that the spoken form and the written form differ. Format and structure and logic matter more in writing, and writing prioritises an agreed accepted standard, - which is how language becomes standardised (otherwise local media would reflect local accents and would be unintelligible to those not from that region if the accent was especially strong) which the US system is not; it is merely a written version of a form of speech, a triumph of informal usage, over logical precision.

And, as someone who has been a professional historian, dates are something I have consumed, and devoured and utilised. Dates matter, and whatever about accepting the Imperial (gloriously impractical, but with its own internal coherence), alongside the metric, I can never see myself using the US method of rendering time, mainly because it makes no sense.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

Actually, it does defy logic. This form may be how it is spoken in everyday speech, but it is more logical to run a sequence of dates from small to large, (or vice versa) when putting them in writing.

And why is it "more logical"?

 

[flyinmac]

The imperial systems used in the USA is a hangover from being a British Colony. One would have thought they would want to get rid of one of the last links with that period.

That's not really a valid argument. If we were actually bothered by anything related to British history, then we could turn the missiles and push a button and one big link to that time period would be gone.

We're not going to change how we measure something out of anger. We're not angry. But perhaps you're still upset about a little tea. The rest of us moved on.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Because running a sequence from smallest unit of measurement of time denoted in this way (day) to the largest (the year) is logical. Dropping the date after the month is not.

Re rendering dates and months in speech, to be honest, I tend to use terms such as '7th of May', or for today, '8th of May' when describing dates orally. To use an expression such as 'May 8' strikes my ears as grammatically incorrect, and grammatically sloppy or lazy, although I am aware that this is how dates are orally expressed in the US.

However, that this form has made the leap to being expressed in writing gives rise (in me) to an irritated blink of irked confusion anytime I see it transcribed on a page.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

I feel the same confusion when I see the British rendering of dates on paper. I go for a second "There's no 29th month! Oh wait...that's the day..."

But this isn't really a list of "units of measurement" in the way "3 cups, 5 oz" is. The month and the day are more closely linked than the year and the month or the year and the day. Therefore the order of the month and the day is almost a separate unit within the unit of month-day-year. Americans just choose a different ordering of month-and-day than non-Americans do.

 

[Paddle1]

If you say May 8th then writing 5/8 makes more sense. Say the 8th of May then 08/05 works better. The year is pretty much separate. I have specifically changed my computer and phones settings so I don't have to use 2016-05-08. The year being the focal point is often unnecessary.

Also Note:
UK drives in Miles
Canada cooks in Fahrenheit
Many people use a bit of both systems

So it's not just the US that you could say needs changing.

 

[A.Goldberg]

I don't think it's unreasonable to have to learn a second convention of measurement. Occasionally I have to look back to the apothecary system of measurements.

I'm American but often use metric measurements with when looking for precision because it's faster and easier in general day-day life. In medicine everything is metric. Weight based medicines are based on milligrams or nanogram per kilogram body weight -or- by body surface area in m^2. The only exception are a couple old school drugs still measured in grains (and prescription vials are measured in drams)

Apothecary System
1 pound = 1 imperial pound
1 pound = 12 ounces (not 16)
1 ounce = 8 drams
1 dram = 3 scruples
3 scruples = 60 grains

Luckily this system has mostly been abolished. Especially the fluid scruples and fluid minims (equiv to grains).

On the contrary, you've had space probes lost due to errors in conversion (i.e., your continued use of imperial has a real world non-trivial cost involved), and conversion from a logical standard into one that makes basically zero sense and is not scaled to work in any scientific way is a waste of time for everybody involved.

And again, prone to error.

It's my understanding that a lot of engineering is now done in metric in the US to prevent errors when interfacing with foreign parts measured in metric. Most new American cars have metric nuts and bolts, usually with the exception of commonly accessed parts like the oil drain.

 

[adk]

In the UK, people measure cars' speeds in miles per hour and they weigh themselves in stones.

Almost everywhere in the world (Russia, China, and North Korea excepted) airplanes climb to altitudes in feet and and measure their speeds in nautical miles per hour.

I'm not so sure the world is as universally metric as the OP presents.

 

[D.T.]

There's some interesting discussions on the date order: speculation on language patterns, attempting to reduce written volume, even several sub-theories about publications , from monthlies using the relevant date component first (i.e., the month), to the logistics of type-setting (and reducing effort in changing date stamps).

Re: dd/mm/yyyy

Since we read left-to-right (we being UK and US), I'd say that's backwards, after all, numbers are largest to smallest (LtR), why are dates smallest to largest?

Why would I write:

150.5

and

30/03/2016

It should be 2016/03/30 if we follow number system patterns.

For that matter the date and standard time patterns are reversed, creating just as much inconsistency, i.e.,

01:00:00PM or 13:00:00

(hours, minutes, seconds)

vs.

30/03/2016

(days, months, years)

Fun

 

[Phil A.]

In the UK, people measure cars' speeds in miles per hour and they weigh themselves in stones.

Almost everywhere in the world (Russia, China, and North Korea excepted) airplanes climb to altitudes in feet and and measure their speeds in nautical miles per hour.

I'm not so sure the world is as universally metric as the OP presents.

The road / car system over here in the UK is a bit of a mess: Distances are shown in miles, car fuel efficiency is measured in miles per gallon and speed is shown in Miles per hour, but we buy our fuel in litres.

Just to confuse things even more, a UK Imperial pint isn't the same as a US pint (a UK one contains 20 fluid ounces whereas a US one is 16 fluid ounces).

This means gallons in the US are also smaller than they were in the UK as both contain 8 pints (which are different!). So a car that does 40mpg in the UK would only do 32mpg in the USA

Pretty much everything else is metric now though - including height / weight measurements when you go to the doctors (although a lot of people still refer to their height in feet / inches and weight in stones / pounds (a stone is 14 pounds))

 

[dukebound85]

Almost every other country in the world, including China.

There are 7.4 billion people in the world, 3 countries do not use Metric. 2 of them are third world.

And only one country has ever been to the moon........one that uses standard system

 

[bunnspecial]

Just to confuse things even more, a UK Imperial pint isn't the same as a US pint (a UK one contains 20 fluid ounces whereas a US one is 16 fluid ounces).

And I can't begin to tell you how many times-when I first started working on my MG(British) that I'd see a stated fluid capacity in pints for some part of the car, fill it to that capacity, and then find it drastically underfilled.

It first happened when I dumped 2 1/2 quarts of oil in the transmission because the manual said "6 pints." I then realized read it more closely to see that it said "6 imperial pints." I actually needed more like 3 1/2 quarts.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

And only one country has ever been to the moon........one that uses standard system

Oh snap, snap.

Coincidence? I think not!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

And only one country has ever been to the moon........one that uses standard system

With a bit of help from German scientists who knew their way around a number of different systems…...

 

[hallux]

Has anyone considered the COST of converting? The major cost of conversion would be the transportation system - our roads are in bad enough shape, imagine diverting funds to re-doing all the signage on our roads rather than repairing the degrading infrastructure. Pretty soon we'll have bridges collapsing under cars as they drive over and potholes large enough to swallow entire cars. It's hard enough to keep our roads in drivable condition.

Even more perplexing is how our interstate highway system can have different schemes for numbering exits. Some states number by the mile marker, some number incrementally. Some states even have highways that number in both manners.

 

[Renzatic]

And only one country has ever been to the moon........one that uses standard system

As a big supporter of the metric system, I find the argument that America hasn't switched to it yet due to the fact it's "too hard" to be a bit ridiculous. If anything, metric is an easier system of measurement to come to terms with because it's all based upon multiples of 10. Once you learn the prefixes, you all but know the entire system, volumes, lengths, and all. 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 100 centimeters in a meter, 1000 meters in a kilometer, and so on and so on.

Contrast against standard, which has 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yards in a mile. In comparison, metric is dead simple stupid, and entirely logical.

The truth is, the US is already well entrenched in metric as is, with at least one foot in the system. We're slowly working our way towards it, but have yet to fully commit.