English, the Language.

[Trilliam]

Three/Free

"Th" is different to "f". If someone is saying them the same way, maybe they should be seeing a speech pathologist.

ETA: "th" is produced with the tongue starting between upper and lower teeth, "f" is produced with the upper teeth restingon the lower lip.

 

[Canadave]

In Australia, a metre is the length 39.37inches.

A metre is the same length wherever you go, you know.

As opposed to the gas METER (which is about 1 metre off the ground) and electricity METER (about 1.5metres off the ground) on the side of my house.

I know. I was just poking fun at how you wrote that, as if a metre is somehow a different length in Australia than in the rest of the world.

 

[Trilliam]

I was illustrating that here, metre and meter are not interchangeable.

 

[Canadave]

On which I fully agree with you. I'm Canadian, remember?

 

[Trilliam]

You'll have to work on your vowels - try saying them as if you're trying to stop blowflies getting into your mouth :P

 

[thestrangequark]

Homophones.

Poor/Pour/Pore/Paw

Three/Free

Not from where I'm standing! Homophones: pour/poor/pore very different from paw, also different form pa (in the former, the w is slightly pronounced).

 

[captcalhoun]

if someone tells me they're 5'6 and weigh ten stone, i understand. when tehy tell me they're 1m 24 and weigh 65kilos i just stare blankly.

i know Usain Bolt running 100m in 9 seconds is fast, but if you tell me a car does 230kph, i'd just stare.

i use such a weird ass combination of metric and imperial it's unreal.

and i HATE farenheit. water freezes at 0 not fucking 32!

oh, and the only time i use 'zee' is when i am talking about military terminology like a Dee-Em-Zee or an Ell-Zee.

i far prefer loo-tenant to lef-tenant...

 

[Trilliam]

Actually, I'm 167. 5cm (5 feet6 inches). 65kg is 10 1/4 stone - 144lbs - that's weight for height and a BMI of 23.

 

[iBender]

I'm 5'11, 13 stone, waiste 32", shoe size US size 12/UK size 11/EUR size 46/ CM? 30 (Is that centimetre or a country??? Well, where ever/what ever it is, I'm shoe size 30 there/in it.)


I'm a giant in Europe.

 

[cultcross]

if someone tells me they're 5'6 and weigh ten stone, i understand. when tehy tell me they're 1m 24 and weigh 65kilos i just stare blankly.

i know Usain Bolt running 100m in 9 seconds is fast, but if you tell me a car does 230kph, i'd just stare.

i use such a weird ass combination of metric and imperial it's unreal.

and i HATE farenheit. water freezes at 0 not fucking 32!

oh, and the only time i use 'zee' is when i am talking about military terminology like a Dee-Em-Zee or an Ell-Zee.

i far prefer loo-tenant to lef-tenant...

Yeah, 'leftenant' has always bugged me, but that's because I grew up on Star Trek and other US military based shows.

Also with you on farenheit, it just seems so random. Celsius has a completely arbitrary basis too of course, but at least it is broadly consistent with our other measurements - length and mass are based around water so why not temperature?
Of course we should use Kelvin but I've never heard anyone use that outside a university

The British seem to have settled on a bizarre mix of Imperial and Metric and it doesn't seem to be changing any more. So we'll keep buying cloth by the metre and driving by the mile, and buying food in grams then weighing its effect on us in stone.
At least in scientific circles we have converted fully to SI units, I used to hate US data where I had to translate out of calories to use it.

 

[Trilliam]

I'm 5'11, 13 stone, waiste 32", shoe size US size 12/UK size 11/EUR size 46/ CM? 30 (Is that centimetre or a country??? Well, where ever/what ever it is, I'm shoe size 30 there/in it.)


I'm a giant in Europe.

180.5 cm or near. 82.5 ish kgs. 32in waist is about 82 cm ( I work in mens apparel sometimes).

The menfolk in my house are 185cm (6ft1), 190.5cm (6ft3), 193.5cm (6ft4) and 198cm (6ft6).

 

[MacLeod]

if someone tells me they're 5'6 and weigh ten stone, i understand. when tehy tell me they're 1m 24 and weigh 65kilos i just stare blankly.

i know Usain Bolt running 100m in 9 seconds is fast, but if you tell me a car does 230kph, i'd just stare.

i use such a weird ass combination of metric and imperial it's unreal.

and i HATE farenheit. water freezes at 0 not fucking 32!

oh, and the only time i use 'zee' is when i am talking about military terminology like a Dee-Em-Zee or an Ell-Zee.

i far prefer loo-tenant to lef-tenant...

Yeah, 'leftenant' has always bugged me, but that's because I grew up on Star Trek and other US military based shows.

Also with you on farenheit, it just seems so random. Celsius has a completely arbitrary basis too of course, but at least it is broadly consistent with our other measurements - length and mass are based around water so why not temperature?
Of course we should use Kelvin but I've never heard anyone use that outside a university

The British seem to have settled on a bizarre mix of Imperial and Metric and it doesn't seem to be changing any more. So we'll keep buying cloth by the metre and driving by the mile, and buying food in grams then weighing its effect on us in stone.
At least in scientific circles we have converted fully to SI units, I used to hate US data where I had to translate out of calories to use it.

Well the mix seems to work for the most part, at least we haven't lost any space probes due to a mix up between different systems. seriously any competent scientist will generally use the international metric system (sometimes K for temp).

So just out of interest can I ask our American cousins why they don't use the metric system or a hybrid system like the brits. In the UK it did take several decades of dual labelling, using both F and C in weather reports. So no one expects change over night.

 

[Trilliam]

So just out of interest can I ask our American cousins why they don't use the metric system

I would have thought they would be happy to avoid any imperial entanglements .....sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[Gov Kodos]

I remember having been taught about it almost 40 years ago, but it was never used extensively. Metric is put on items and road signs, but there is no great push to make use of it. It is probably more due to the long preeminence of economic and political power of the Anglophone world. I don't expect US change until there is greater economic need to. When did Britain start making extensive use of the system?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

and i HATE farenheit. water freezes at 0 not fucking 32!

See, Fahrenheit is the only one I find unnecessary to change (although Chemistry is easier in Celsius since Kelvin is based on it). There are no sub-units there. The important thing is what you know a couple of temperatures feels like, then you have a broad idea about the rest. I know 20 degrees feels cold in Fahrenheit and that's all that matters. Yes, water freezing and boiling are more arbitrary, but the use of water is arbitrary as well. Besides, Fahrenheit allows for more precision between temperatures, since there is a 180 degree difference between freezing and boiling, as opposed to 100.

So just out of interest can I ask our American cousins why they don't use the metric system or a hybrid system like the brits. In the UK it did take several decades of dual labelling, using both F and C in weather reports. So no one expects change over night.

Both are taught in schools and Celsius is finding more and more uses, but people like Fahrenheit for a lot of things. We're used to miles per hour, for example. No one would have a clue what your height and weight are except in Fahrenheit (I know Shaquille O'Neal is 7"2. I haven't a clue how many meters that is). A Quarter Pounder with Cheese would have to be a Royale with Cheese. Shit gets complicated quickly.

The only one that seems to be catching on a bit is with liquid measurements. You can buy a 2 Liter bottle of soda and everyone knows what size it is. But people still like buying a gallon of milk and a pint of beer (even if we're getting screwed over on beer pints compared to British pints). There are just so many things people like hanging onto that it's hard to squeeze in the metric system. Distance in km seems likely to be next to switch, but kmph means nothing to me if someone tells me.

 

[JoeZhang]

I used to live near Bicester and used to love confused Americans asking for "Bi-cester".

 

[Gov Kodos]

Is it pronounced 'Bista' like 'Glosta' for Gloucester?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

When did Britain start making extensive use of the system?

I expect we had to because we joined the EU (or European Economic Community as it then was known) in 1973. In a free trade area, you can't really have different countries using different weights and measures.

However, EU gives up on 'metric Britain', so the old farts among us won in the end.

We've also resisted attempts to make us change all our road signs and drive on the right. That would have been a prohibitively expensive thing to accomplish. Sweden and Iceland switched to driving on the right in 1967 and 1968 but they have much smaller (and perhaps less bolshie) populations.

 

[JoeZhang]

Is it pronounced 'Bista' like 'Glosta' for Gloucester?

Yep.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Is it pronounced 'Bista' like 'Glosta' for Gloucester?

Yep.

You can tell folks aren't from New England states the same way. Other Americans will say 'Glou' like out so we hear 'Glou-chester' and 'Glou-sester' or Leominster pronounced 'Leo-minster' for 'Lemensta'