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Weights & Measures - USA vs the World

It's only the mass-produced stuff that tastes bad.

Microbrews are delicious.

I must admit, until now I have never heard of microbrews before.

They are a thing of beauty and they taste just as good if not better than the best stuff Europe has to offer.

I'll have to take your word for it. Unless you volunteer to send me a batch? In the name of cultural exchange? Widening someone's horizon?
 
I must admit, until now I have never heard of microbrews before.

They are a thing of beauty and they taste just as good if not better than the best stuff Europe has to offer.

I'll have to take your word for it. Unless you volunteer to send me a batch? In the name of cultural exchange? Widening someone's horizon?
Somehow I think the shipping and handling on a keg of beer would be a little out of my price range.
 
They are a thing of beauty and they taste just as good if not better than the best stuff Europe has to offer.

I'll have to take your word for it. Unless you volunteer to send me a batch? In the name of cultural exchange? Widening someone's horizon?
Somehow I think the shipping and handling on a keg of beer would be a little out of my price range.

Same. I live on a grad student's stipend damnit!

I already go over budget with my own personal booze purchases as it is. :(
 
^When you think about it, that is actually quite an interesting cultural difference. I wonder how and when the continents diverged.

Pre 1860s at least. I think first edition Mrs Beeton recipes (which would be from around that time) already use weights for solid ingredients.

Oh they do, yes - my mother has a cherished first edition ;)

Admit it, it's actually yours. :D

(I'm only jesting; I'd love a first edition copy!)

In fact, there is a book from the 16th Century (well, the pages are anyway, its been rebound) written in Latin in the Bristol central library describing the recipes of upper class feasts, and that uses weights (strangely, no gram conversion! :vulcan: ). The date inside the cover is 1587, so it reaches back to Colonial Times at least that we were using weight rather than volume - it certainly suggests that the use of volume as a standard emerged in the United States. Perhaps it was simply a lack of equipment which led to the change?

Yeah, possibly. Would be interesting to know, definitely.
 
Pre 1860s at least. I think first edition Mrs Beeton recipes (which would be from around that time) already use weights for solid ingredients.

Oh they do, yes - my mother has a cherished first edition ;)

Admit it, it's actually yours. :D

(I'm only jesting; I'd love a first edition copy!)

In fact, there is a book from the 16th Century (well, the pages are anyway, its been rebound) written in Latin in the Bristol central library describing the recipes of upper class feasts, and that uses weights (strangely, no gram conversion! :vulcan: ). The date inside the cover is 1587, so it reaches back to Colonial Times at least that we were using weight rather than volume - it certainly suggests that the use of volume as a standard emerged in the United States. Perhaps it was simply a lack of equipment which led to the change?

Yeah, possibly. Would be interesting to know, definitely.
Perhaps something that was learned from the Native Americans? I doubt they were using scales to measure ingredients.
 
But in 'normal life' I'd measure long distances in miles, short ones in metres, the weight of a person in stone but food in grams, small areas in square metres, larger ones in 'sizes of Wales'.

Interesting one - I too use "sizes of Wales" as a measure for large areas.

What do Americans use? Do you describe things as "About the size of <insert state name here>"?
 
But in 'normal life' I'd measure long distances in miles, short ones in metres, the weight of a person in stone but food in grams, small areas in square metres, larger ones in 'sizes of Wales'.

Interesting one - I too use "sizes of Wales" as a measure for large areas.

What do Americans use? Do you describe things as "About the size of <insert state name here>"?
How large of an area are we talking?

The only time I've ever really heard anyone describe something in terms of a state was in "Armageddon" when they said the asteroid was the size of Texas.
 
But in 'normal life' I'd measure long distances in miles, short ones in metres, the weight of a person in stone but food in grams, small areas in square metres, larger ones in 'sizes of Wales'.

Interesting one - I too use "sizes of Wales" as a measure for large areas.

What do Americans use? Do you describe things as "About the size of <insert state name here>"?
How large of an area are we talking?

The only time I've ever really heard anyone describe something in terms of a state was in "Armageddon" when they said the asteroid was the size of Texas.

Oh yeah I remember that scene.

In terms of what we describe as being the size of Wales, pretty much any place that's bigger than a city. Like the Hudson Bay is big enough you can drop all of England, Scotland and Wales into it without noticing.

That's the only one I can think of off-hand, I'm useless at geography. But it does seem to be a British thing (or just me and cultcross, I suppose) to reference everything back to the size of our own country.
 
Yeah, I don't think we really do that here. I mean, I just looked up Wales on wikipedia, and it has a smaller area than Chicagoland.

Everything in the US is huge compared to a lot of Europe.
 
"The metric system is the tool of the Devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogs head and that's the way I likes it!"
 
While I'm pretty decent at thinking in imperial (at least for distance, size, and weight), metric is definitely the way to go.
 
I'll have to take your word for it. Unless you volunteer to send me a batch? In the name of cultural exchange? Widening someone's horizon?
Somehow I think the shipping and handling on a keg of beer would be a little out of my price range.

Same. I live on a grad student's stipend damnit!

I already go over budget with my own personal booze purchases as it is. :(

you're just not trying hard enough. In the name of booze, don't eat for a month!
 
Somehow I think the shipping and handling on a keg of beer would be a little out of my price range.

Same. I live on a grad student's stipend damnit!

I already go over budget with my own personal booze purchases as it is. :(

you're just not trying hard enough. In the name of booze, don't eat for a month!
If I'm not eating for a month in the name of booze, I guarantee that I will be the one drinking the booze, not you.
 
But in 'normal life' I'd measure long distances in miles, short ones in metres, the weight of a person in stone but food in grams, small areas in square metres, larger ones in 'sizes of Wales'.

Interesting one - I too use "sizes of Wales" as a measure for large areas.

What do Americans use? Do you describe things as "About the size of <insert state name here>"?
If something is really big, we compare it to Alaska or Texas; if something is really small, we compare it to Rhode Island. :D
 
But in 'normal life' I'd measure long distances in miles, short ones in metres, the weight of a person in stone but food in grams, small areas in square metres, larger ones in 'sizes of Wales'.

Interesting one - I too use "sizes of Wales" as a measure for large areas.

What do Americans use? Do you describe things as "About the size of <insert state name here>"?
If something is really big, we compare it to Alaska or Texas; if something is really small, we compare it to Rhode Island. :D
Do we? Do we really?

I never have.
 
We do around here. Although come to think of it, Rhode Island can be used to describe big things, too-- the big chunks that break off the polar ice cap always seem to be the size of Rhode Island. :rommie:
 
I recently watched a nature documentary in which capybaras were shown it said that each year in this particular region (which was somewhere in Brazil but it wasn't the Amazon) an area the size of France gets flooded.
 
Same. I live on a grad student's stipend damnit!

I already go over budget with my own personal booze purchases as it is. :(

you're just not trying hard enough. In the name of booze, don't eat for a month!
If I'm not eating for a month in the name of booze, I guarantee that I will be the one drinking the booze, not you.

First you are insisting on the superiority of cups and now you don't want to starve yourself for me. There are no gentlemen any more.
 
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