With how mountainous Europe is, no it doesn’t. What bothers me most (aside from the ongoing, increasingly vivid global extinction event) is the sense that, were the situation flipped, you guys wouldn’t miss a beat telling people to look it up instead of assuming every country works like theirs does.
Good news is, we’ll both have something else to complain about in a year or two, if we’re…still able to do that.
Oh, I think you might be projecting there. Have you ever been to Germany or France or any other European country? If the situation was flipped and we Europeans were the only ones using a system no one else does, we wouldn’t tell you to look it up, we would never stop complaining about our governments for not changing shit.
Well, I’m…american, so I’m generally too broke to leave my house. I will openly admit I’m increasingly jealous of the French tendency to fuck shit up at the slightest inconvenience. They seem to know a lot more about getting things done.
I think one would also have to account for geography in that, no? If a country were landlocked and surrounded by a ton of others that all used the same separate system that they themselves do not, then there would be very significant reason and pressure to change. As much as it’s derided for it, America IS very much a universe unto itself, and the only dealings it has with nations that do things differently are in areas of work that have switched over to more standard measurements.
All science and engineering are primarily or totally done in metric after we crashed the Mars Orbiter headlong into the dirt at mach speed. Everything else tends to use the more mathmatically sensible kelvin. Mexico uses metric and celsius, but I’ve literally never had a reason to go to mexico and probably never will. Canada uses both, but same deal.
I make a concerted effort to include both systems whenever I have to type for an audience of mixed/ambiguous nationality, but in my day-to-day, I will never meet another person who can easily switch between them and I have no use to do that either. It is a useless skill for me to have. Despite this, I have the sense that I see more europeans complaining about farenheit than I ever see Americans complain about celsius existing, and for such a damn stupid populace, I’m left to assume we either comment less or google it more.
Regarding projecting, I could be tongue-in-cheek and ask if you’ve ever met a European before. Our food. Our language. Our buildings, cities, cars, media, sports, slang, holidays, garbage disposals, windows, classrooms, whether or not we take our shoes off in the house. I struggle to think of a single subject you guys will not routinely make an inordinate amount of fuss over, as if it killed your children, and I’m convinced at this point that it’s for love of spite and there’s literally nothing we could do to make Europe happy if we wanted to. It makes sense that any chance to acknowledge the alternate measuring system would be prime ribs.
Brits especially will snark about american english that routinely turns out to be a defunct british word. Germans will complain about the drywall, but their own houses have the same drywall. Houses in Switzerland are made of wood, but nobody bitches at the Swiss.
Parting note, the downvote feels in keeping with that kind of pettiness.
Oh, I think you might be projecting there. Have you ever been to Germany or France or any other European country? If the situation was flipped and we Europeans were the only ones using a system no one else does, we wouldn’t tell you to look it up, we would never stop complaining about our governments for not changing shit.
With how mountainous Europe is, no it doesn’t. What bothers me most (aside from the ongoing, increasingly vivid global extinction event) is the sense that, were the situation flipped, you guys wouldn’t miss a beat telling people to look it up instead of assuming every country works like theirs does.
Good news is, we’ll both have something else to complain about in a year or two, if we’re…still able to do that.
Oh, I think you might be projecting there. Have you ever been to Germany or France or any other European country? If the situation was flipped and we Europeans were the only ones using a system no one else does, we wouldn’t tell you to look it up, we would never stop complaining about our governments for not changing shit.
Well, I’m…american, so I’m generally too broke to leave my house. I will openly admit I’m increasingly jealous of the French tendency to fuck shit up at the slightest inconvenience. They seem to know a lot more about getting things done.
I think one would also have to account for geography in that, no? If a country were landlocked and surrounded by a ton of others that all used the same separate system that they themselves do not, then there would be very significant reason and pressure to change. As much as it’s derided for it, America IS very much a universe unto itself, and the only dealings it has with nations that do things differently are in areas of work that have switched over to more standard measurements.
All science and engineering are primarily or totally done in metric
after we crashed the Mars Orbiter headlong into the dirt at mach speed.Everything else tends to use the more mathmatically sensible kelvin. Mexico uses metric and celsius, but I’ve literally never had a reason to go to mexico and probably never will. Canada uses both, but same deal.I make a concerted effort to include both systems whenever I have to type for an audience of mixed/ambiguous nationality, but in my day-to-day, I will never meet another person who can easily switch between them and I have no use to do that either. It is a useless skill for me to have. Despite this, I have the sense that I see more europeans complaining about farenheit than I ever see Americans complain about celsius existing, and for such a damn stupid populace, I’m left to assume we either comment less or google it more.
Regarding projecting, I could be tongue-in-cheek and ask if you’ve ever met a European before. Our food. Our language. Our buildings, cities, cars, media, sports, slang, holidays, garbage disposals, windows, classrooms, whether or not we take our shoes off in the house. I struggle to think of a single subject you guys will not routinely make an inordinate amount of fuss over, as if it killed your children, and I’m convinced at this point that it’s for love of spite and there’s literally nothing we could do to make Europe happy if we wanted to. It makes sense that any chance to acknowledge the alternate measuring system would be prime ribs.
Brits especially will snark about american english that routinely turns out to be a defunct british word. Germans will complain about the drywall, but their own houses have the same drywall. Houses in Switzerland are made of wood, but nobody bitches at the Swiss.
Parting note, the downvote feels in keeping with that kind of pettiness.
Oh, I think you might be projecting there. Have you ever been to Germany or France or any other European country? If the situation was flipped and we Europeans were the only ones using a system no one else does, we wouldn’t tell you to look it up, we would never stop complaining about our governments for not changing shit.