Tinker Gnome
Adventurer
I, in my own personal life use my own measuring system called the Galerosian system. It can get inconvenient at times, but I make other people see reason.
Metric & Markets
- Thread starter Hairfoot
- Start date
deadsmurf
First Post
Here in Canada, a country that has semi recently gone through metrication (started in the early 70s) We're still not completely over to metric. Trades are still done in Feet and inches, as are heights and weights in the general populous; but all food (except beer is still a pint of drought if you get that) is in grams and liters, speeds are Km/h (though you still say 'millage' when talking about gasoline efficiency or odometer total, even if the figure is in Kms), you get temperature from the news in Centigrade, and rain/snowfall amounts in mm/cm.
In my estimation it will be a few generations yet until the imperial system is completely gone from Canada. My generation, or the one before it was mostly exposed to metric through education and imperial from our parents. Once we're all dead and gone everyday users of imperial will be mostly gone as well.
I'm sure it will be similar in Britain, 60-70 years before most people are really truly metricized.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
You realise that makes pints illegal!
This is the one bad thing I've come across with the change to metric. <thinks a bit 
> Of course it means we can just use litre steins instead. 
Orius
Unrepentant DM Supremacist
Is it just me, or do we D&D players tend to talk about this a lot? There was a discussion about this a few months ago, and I've been seeing these discussions ever since I started posting on Usenet. Not as common (or flame-filled!) as alignment, but still a perennial.
Maybe it's an internet thing.
As much as Americans complain about not understanding metric, sometimes it seems silly. I mean, 2 liter bottles of soda have been around for almost 40 years now and people have no problem with them.
And of course damn near everything here is labeled in both systems.
Then, it gets even wackier when our units have been defined by metric equivalents for nearly the last hundred years!
I agree with this. A somewhat simple version of the customary units are good for some settings, like a fantasy campaign, where metric would be too anachronistic.
It's completely different over here; it's been legal to sell stuff in metric since nearly the end of the Civil War, but few people have ever done so, because they'd likely have gone out of business in the old days. These days, it's inertia.
What really gets me is how some companies to cut costs have been resizing their packaging ever so slightly, and selling slightly smaller amounts to save money. I can understand how people would be more comfortable with stuff in the common quantities of 8, 12, 16, 18, or 20 oz. But now I'm seeing stuff with measurements like 13.7 oz. WTF is that? If people are just visually measuring up stuff with their eyes, and not looking at measurements, why don't the companies just go metric without any major fanfare and be done with it? It's likely to happen eventually, and round metric numbers look better to me than crap like 13.7.
Isn't a liter bigger than a pint? Like quite a BIT bigger?
Let's see, a quart of something is nearly equivalent to a liter, so a liter stein should be something like nearly twice the size. Though I'm going by the US units, 2 qts = 1.89L, don't know how it matches in Imperial.
Maybe it's an internet thing.
As much as Americans complain about not understanding metric, sometimes it seems silly. I mean, 2 liter bottles of soda have been around for almost 40 years now and people have no problem with them.
And of course damn near everything here is labeled in both systems.
Then, it gets even wackier when our units have been defined by metric equivalents for nearly the last hundred years!
I agree with this. A somewhat simple version of the customary units are good for some settings, like a fantasy campaign, where metric would be too anachronistic.
It's completely different over here; it's been legal to sell stuff in metric since nearly the end of the Civil War, but few people have ever done so, because they'd likely have gone out of business in the old days. These days, it's inertia.
What really gets me is how some companies to cut costs have been resizing their packaging ever so slightly, and selling slightly smaller amounts to save money. I can understand how people would be more comfortable with stuff in the common quantities of 8, 12, 16, 18, or 20 oz. But now I'm seeing stuff with measurements like 13.7 oz. WTF is that? If people are just visually measuring up stuff with their eyes, and not looking at measurements, why don't the companies just go metric without any major fanfare and be done with it? It's likely to happen eventually, and round metric numbers look better to me than crap like 13.7.
You realise that makes pints illegal!
Isn't a liter bigger than a pint? Like quite a BIT bigger?
Let's see, a quart of something is nearly equivalent to a liter, so a liter stein should be something like nearly twice the size. Though I'm going by the US units, 2 qts = 1.89L, don't know how it matches in Imperial.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
In real life, I use a mix of both - imperial for most things (particularly distance; I *can't* visualise metric distance at any size); but metric for temperature, some food items, and (oddly enough) road speeds.
In the game, it's imperial all the way. I even re-did my coinage system to something similar to the pre-decimal British system (thus equivalents to pounds, shillings, pence, ha'pence, etc.), just for fun.
Lan-"by definition, my foot is a foot long, more or less"-efan
In the game, it's imperial all the way. I even re-did my coinage system to something similar to the pre-decimal British system (thus equivalents to pounds, shillings, pence, ha'pence, etc.), just for fun.
Lan-"by definition, my foot is a foot long, more or less"-efan
Darkness
Hand and Eye of Piratecat [Moderator]
No worries, mate:You realise that makes pints illegal!
Wikipedia said:
P
PaulofCthulhu
Guest
As people have said , I suspect it will just be a matter of time before the UK is fully metric, it may be several more decades, but the path to acceptance is likely the same as for other things: indoctrinating the young and the oldies who remember the old ways shuffling off.
As for Fantasy games - as they are usually set in some sort of mythical past or less tech advanced settings then imperial is what I choose for them anyway. People just use rough equivalents if they really need, 1 yard = 1 metre etc.
As for Fantasy games - as they are usually set in some sort of mythical past or less tech advanced settings then imperial is what I choose for them anyway. People just use rough equivalents if they really need, 1 yard = 1 metre etc.
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Well,
Keep in mind the formal SI, the "metric system" was only established in 1960 and only started being formally placed into measurement was in the 1970s. So before that, Imperial and Metric systems were more of an influence battle between England/US influenced countries and those using the French established "metric system". This chart shows that.
File:SI-metrication-world.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also keep in mind that "metrication" is a gradual process. While this shows the dates Metrication becomes official, it takes at least a few decades before it becomes "natural" to the native population--as to really get it into popular use the next generation needs to learn it as part of their basic skills, and/or the nation-state needs to force its official usage. The US has been very resistant--our move towards it is not mandated by the Federal Government. I suspect most countries that adopted metrication on or after 1940 are still having cases of mixed usage.
I think the hardest changes to occur will be length and temperature, so it's going to be harder to eliminate the feet/yard/mile and the Fahrenheit scale than it would be for weight or volume.
Keep in mind the formal SI, the "metric system" was only established in 1960 and only started being formally placed into measurement was in the 1970s. So before that, Imperial and Metric systems were more of an influence battle between England/US influenced countries and those using the French established "metric system". This chart shows that.
File:SI-metrication-world.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also keep in mind that "metrication" is a gradual process. While this shows the dates Metrication becomes official, it takes at least a few decades before it becomes "natural" to the native population--as to really get it into popular use the next generation needs to learn it as part of their basic skills, and/or the nation-state needs to force its official usage. The US has been very resistant--our move towards it is not mandated by the Federal Government. I suspect most countries that adopted metrication on or after 1940 are still having cases of mixed usage.
I think the hardest changes to occur will be length and temperature, so it's going to be harder to eliminate the feet/yard/mile and the Fahrenheit scale than it would be for weight or volume.
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