Canada began its transition away from the imperial measurement system more than 50 years ago. Now, a Victoria man is petitioning the federal government to finish the job, one kilogram, centimetre and litre at a time.
  • Heliumfart@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    3 hours ago

    Wholeheartedly agree! I’ve been making a bigger effort the last few years. It’s an uphill battle, as a builder, but I often equate imperial with "Yankee units"or “sorry, don’t speak American anymore”

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
    3·
    9 hours ago

    Grocery stores will hate that. Their “X by the pound” sales signs make it seem cheaper than “X by the kilogram”, even though there is no difference. It must work well because they are still fooling most of us with the “$2.99” is two dollars, not three dollars, gambit.

  • Great Blue Heron@lemmy.caEnglish
    12·
    1 day ago

    I moved to Canada from Australia 5 years ago and was dumbfounded by the amount of American measurement still in use. It’s been an interesting exercise for my ageing brain to figure out how to do math with fractions of an inch etc. I’m also baffled by the number of people using American date format!

    We’re trying though - I’m installing new flooring in my house and the size written on the box is 7.5" x 48" x 10mm - that gave me a chuckle.

    I had hoped that the current discontent with the US would prompt more people to cringe at using their measurement system, but nobody seems to see the connection.

  • m0darn@lemmy.ca
    5·
    1 day ago

    What I think is hilarious is that even the imperial system uses metric.

    The inch is defined in millimeters

  • droopy4096@lemmy.ca
    2·
    23 hours ago

    considering we want to get closer to EU and further away from US it would make sense. Exporting feet yards and gallons doesn’t work for non-US. BUT entire country is hooked on imperial- all construction supplies and hardware are primarily imperial, all the training is done imperial, windows and doors are all imperial. So it’s.not an overnight thing but steps could be taken, say, over a decade or so to shift further away from imperial

  • farmgineer@nord.pubEnglish
    1·
    22 hours ago

    As someone who moved to a place where everything practical is metric it’s much easier. We do have a combination of traditional units for a couple of minor things (room/property size, alcohol size) but they’re almost always posted side-by-side with metric. We do get screens and some tires in inches, but those also always have metric with them. Most Japanese probably also don’t realize that the unit is inches because it’s basically a “60-type TV” not a “60-inch TV”.

      • ohshit604@lemmy.halstead.host
        1·
        20 hours ago

        Whenever I see a fabrication and or engineering drawing from an American company it’s always imperial, I assume it’s a standard over there that they adhere to.

    • TheSecondVariety@lemmy.ca
      2·
      1 day ago

      I believe so, but this guy wants to go after everything else like getting trades to use it and make metric the default setting on electronics.

      IDK if thats the best plan or if he realizes what an uphill battle certain things might be. Like ovens; our oven somehow switched over to metric on thanksgiving and it totally messed me up, I spent a LOT of time figuring out how to change that back to F. Another issue is industries that just aren’t going to want to change: aviation, boats I think are imperial, railways are, home building, etc.

  • Tigeroovy@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    I mean, we’re as metric as you wanna be. I’m unfortunately poisoned by imperial measurements but I still use metric plenty.

    • non_burglar@lemmy.world
      7·
      1 day ago

      Trades, architecture, engineers, railways, weights and measures people from industry Canada, aviation, roadwork, steelmills, steelworkers, coffeeshops, farmers, clothing, textiles, restaurants, recipes, and many more!

      I suppose you don’t live in Canada? Imperial is everywhere.