I'm five foot twenty-five centimetres tall

[pne]

I'm curious as to what sort of units you use to measure various things, especially since I've heard that some people will use a mixture of metric and non-metric units depending on the object (one example given was measuring distances in miles but speeds in kilometres per hour, or measuring short distances in inches and feet but longer ones in metres and kilometres).

If you answer "other", or want to add anything, please comment on this entry.

Edit to add: I'm also interested in how you'd measure the diagonal of (a) a television set and (b) a computer monitor. (For example, in Germany (a) is usually in cm while (b) is usually in inches.)

[Poll #270715]

Comments

Interesting poll

[(Anonymous)]

It's an interesting poll. Didn't take part, but I think I'm surprisingly metric for someone born in the UK. Ever since I was little I ignored all imperial measurements (except miles, I guess), and now, when, very rarely, some measurement is given solely in imperial, I'm at a loss.

Just to give you an idea of what I would have put...

Food: calories (kcal)

Car: Don't care

Car speed: Don't care

Boat speed: Don't care

Temperature: Always has to be Celsius. Fever, bath, weather, whatever. My oven has no Fahrenheit scale, and I wouldn't dream of touching the knob if it did.

Earthquake: Richter

Height: It's nice and even in metric, but I memorised it in imperial so I don't sound like an idiot.

Weight: Kilos. My scales only have kilos. I've always used kilos. I have no idea what my weight is in stones and pounds - I always forget. But, I am not an idiot apparently if I say my weight in kilos.

Wind speed: I don't care too much. Kilometres and miles are equally natural to me.

Newborn baby: I don't know how much I weighed at birth. And I don't see the significance of other people telling me their birthweight. I'd prefer kilos.

Shopping: Almost all prepackaged food is metric, so when I buy fresh, I buy in kilos.

Paper: A4

House size, room size, office space: Square metres, please! If I see sqft, I divide by 10. If I measure the area of the floor to buy carpet, I'll use metres, because my measuring tape is metric... I think. Or maybe I just automatically ignore the inches...

Spectacles: +1.00 -4.50 -3.75 +4.25, that sort of thing.

Air pressure: Millibars, hectopascals, same thing.

Butter, petrol: Grams, litres.

Land: I don't care what people measure land in. I'd measure mine in hectares. 100m by 100m squares is good enough for me.

Volume: A can of coke is 330ml, sometimes 33cl. Same for a glass bottle. A plastic bottle can be 500ml, 1L, 1.25L, 1.5L or 2L.

Country: Square kilometres. Miles are natural to me, but square miles aren't.

Distances: Mostly metres, centimetres. If something is about the size of a foot, or half a foot, inch or half an inch, I'll use imperial.

My gas meter uses cuft, and I never look at my gas bill.

Screw this, I usually measure everything in metric, from sugar to milk to God knows what. I don't wanna be confused. If I measured tall buildings in metres, but other distances in feet, I wouldn't be able to relate the two that easily...

So, it's probably best to be consistent in whatever system you prefer. I couldn't be consistent in imperial because it is very often lacking alongside the metric measurement. So I chose the right system to be consistent in pretty early on. Good for me, huh.