Is there any Anglophone country that was fully metric in 1950? --40bus (talk) 23:34, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing the Metrication article, the answer would seem to be "No." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:18, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If many Spanish colonies in the Americas metricated in 19th century, why didn't British colonies do same? Why did Australia only metricate in 1970s? --40bus (talk) 06:55, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anglophone colonies (to make a sweeping generalisation) took their lead from the UK which had little interest in metrification back then; there was simply no pressing reason for it*, and since it was perceived as a French idea, there would have been active cultural hostility towards its adoption. France adopted it in the wake of a huge politico-cultural revolution; the Anglosphere had no such cusp to prompt an abandonment of comfortably familiar tradition.

(* Of course, it was useful scientifically, but Anglospherical (!) scientists were quite happy to use metric units in the lab and imperial ones in their daily lives. This was still the case when I was schooled, and in the UK is still true to a certain degree today.) {The poster formerly known as as 97.81.230.195} 94.2.64.108 (talk) 11:00, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what 'fully metric' means precisely, but are there any Anglophone countries that are 'fully metric' in 2025? Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:00, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Australia did a fairly thorough job with its conversion. But US dominance gets in the way of perfection. We have Subway, with its foot longs. I saw a debate today as to whether tyre pressures should be in Kilopascals, or PSI. And of course, aviation measurements are imperial. HiLo48 (talk) 08:29, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Finland, Subway sandwiches are sold in sizes of 15 cm and 30 cm. These numbers are highly divisible numbers that divide evenly by 3 and 6 (15⁄6 is still terminating [2.5]). These sandwiches can be cut equally into3 and 6 pieces. Rulers are also 30 cm long. Are there any English-speaking countries where sandwiches are sold in 15 cm and 30 cm sizes? --40bus (talk) 21:23, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sandwiches typically don't have a constant cross-section, so if you cut them in pieces of equal length, you don't cut them in pieces of equal mass. Anyway, how often have you seen somebody cut a sandwich using a ruler? PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:50, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

40bus 12 inches is divisible by 1, 2, 3 (giving 3 1 hand sandwiches), 4, 6 and 12. Dividing by 5, 8, and 10 is terminating, dividing by 9 is exactly 1 inch 1 barleycorn. Dividing by 36 is one barleycorn. Dividing by 144 is one line. Dividing by 1728 is one hair. So 1 foot is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, 18, 24, 27, 32, 36, 48, 54, 64, 72, 96, 108, 144, 192, 216, 288, 432, 576, 864, and 1728. 12 and 6 inch sandwiches can be cut into 1, 2, 3 and 6 pieces in whole inches. Rulers are also 12 inches or 6 inches long. A foot is also about a foot long, meaning you can keep these rolls in your shoe. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:53, 25 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]

HiLo48, I've not eaten Subway very often since immigrating (I've not been able to get work comparable to what I had in the US), but on the occasions when my family and I have gone to Subway here, I've always been amused by the fact that Subway Australia has a trademark on "six-inch" and "foot-long" :-) So it's not exactly a measurement but a distinctive name for specific sandwiches. Nyttend (talk) 20:59, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

40bus — Subway and aviation aside, Australia has occasional pre-metric measurements. You'll see inches used at JB Hi-Fi for TV screens, at Supercheap Auto for windscreen wipers, and at Bunnings for nails. Nyttend (talk) 21:04, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The sticker in the door of my mother's car has both kPa and PSI. Most people I know use PSI - pressure is hard to visualise and to most the tyre pressure is just a number. We still have pints in the pub, which in South Australia is 425ml, but 570ml in the other states. If you want to replace a door in a house, you buy a 900mm door, which I suppose is metric, but really it's 3 feet. TrogWoolley (talk) 10:32, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The answer, as always to the OP's "why don't..." questions is that "They didn't want to". The Metrication Board was disbanded, the reason being that people didn't see why they should be fined for buying and weighing out potatoes in pounds and ounces. Traders can still be fined for weighing them out in Imperial, but that's as far as it goes. My good friend Colin Hunt was targeted by weights and measures inspectors, who pounced when he made an arithmetical mistake in a conversion. His sister Janet also suffered. I was in Australia in 1971 when people still referred to the 20 cents coin as "two bob". I am intrigued as to why the South Australian pint is 425 millilitres. Here it's 568 millilitres. West Australian publicans would never treat their customers like that. According to our article, the U S pint is 473 millilitres. 2A00:23C5:8410:4A01:907A:4B08:B028:3AA1 (talk) 12:54, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

40bus keeps having trouble understanding that different countries (or cultures or languages or ...) are different. It comes across as exceptionally arrogant to expect everyone, everywhere, to do everything exactly the way he (?) is used to in Finland. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:10, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In fairness, he (?) actually is doing better in this thread, as many of the questions are phrased "are there any..." and such as opposed to "why did"/"why didn't". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:15, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My brother has just become a grandfather for the 7th time. The email announcement told us the child weighed so many pounds and ounces, not kilograms. That tradition doesn't look like going away any time soon. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:35, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

JackofOz, interesting. Both of our children were born after we immigrated, and the hospital told us only kg and cm, not pounds-and-ounces or feet-and-inches. Do many people really take the hospital-provided data and convert before sending out birth announcements? Nyttend (talk) 19:24, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what sort of info hospitals give out these days, Nyttend. But I've seen all manner of birth announcements - from family and friends, to notices in shop windows for a mother who works there - and it's still always in lbs and ozs (sometimes with the metric equivalent added, but mostly not). Very few women giving birth now were born before metrication, and they've been buying grocery and supermarket items in kilos all their lives, but that doesn't cut any ice when it comes to birth announcements, apparently. Sp I'd never be surprised if hospitals routinely do the conversion because they know the mothers are going to ask for it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:31, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It makes sense to use metrics within science, and it also makes sense to use human measurements in other contexts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:08, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What are "human measurements"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:07, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inches, feet, and the like. A meter comes fairly close to being a natural measurement, being just a bit longer than a yard. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:29, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Protagoras c. 490 BC – c. 420 BC may have meant that "Of all things the measure is Man ('s foot ?)." Philvoids (talk) 08:59, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A centimetre comes close to the width of my little finger ("pinky" for you), while the mile is an inhuman measurement.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:03, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mile is derived from Latin, mille, thousand, referring to 1,000 paces of a human adult. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:42, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a double pace (passus), see Ancient Roman units of measurement#Length, equal to five roman feet. Mikenorton (talk) 23:23, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That probably accounts for why the statute mile is in the neighborhood of 5,000 feet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, "foot-long subs" are advertised and presumably a standard, but since 1 foot exactly is 30.48 centimetres (and if you're rounding to the nearest inch can be 29.21–31.75 cm), and since bread products inherently vary in their exact dimensions, 1 ft and 30 cm are effectively the same.

School (etc.) rulers in the UK have customarily been marked in inches on one edge and centimetres on the other for at least 60 years to my personal observation. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.64.108 (talk) 02:45, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Perth in 1971 residents were enjoying WA's first Kentucky Fried Chicken, which had just opened on the corner of Canning Highway and Stock Road. I would imagine that the presence of multinationals would put a damper on full metrication (as HiLo48 noted). I was surprised to learn that people put a ruler up against sandwiches to classify them. I've only seen them in standard-size packs which itemise the ingredients but don't say how big they are (in the manufacture of the raw material, bakers distinguish between "thin", "medium" and "thick"). 80.43.76.22 (talk) 12:00, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One point of interest - in Australia mileages (do they still call them "mileages"?) are metric. Do people still use miles? Do rulers still carry inches? What exactly have been the metric inroads to life there in the last half century? 80.43.76.22 (talk) 12:10, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nominally only a few items remain Imperial in formal British life, some measurements relating to road use, the pint for draught beer and cider, champagne and reusable milk bottles (pinta), the troy ounce for precious metals. Aircraft altitude is I believe still measured in feet, worldwide. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 23:08, 25 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]

And railways of course, with the exception of HS1. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:38, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another target is temperature. On a warm spring day do Australians say it is "in the seventies" or "in the twenties"? 80.43.76.22 (talk) 15:12, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The latter. Since immigrating here from the US, I've never encountered Fahrenheit, except (1) when talking with American relatives and friends, and (2) on the occasional news segment that features Americans talking about the weather. Nyttend (talk) 19:23, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aircraft altitude is a strange case: it used to be metric in most of the world (most of the non-anglophone world anyway) and switched after World War 2 under the influence of British and American aircraft builders. Similarly, aircraft speeds switched from km/h to knots. A rare case of demetrication. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:34, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Prior to WWII, which countries manufactured most of the airplanes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:15, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that prior to WWII, most aircraft-operating countries manufactured their own aircraft. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.64.108 (talk) 03:52, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the large and many of the medium sized countries in Europe had a sizeable aircraft industry; in particular Germany and France. The war turned out to be bad for the aircraft industry on the loosing side and good on the winning side, where being occupied by Germany put you on the loosing side. Eventually the European aircraft industry recovered, but that was when the switch to feet had already happened (except in the Soviet Union, but they didn't sell so much to western countries). PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:38, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some years ago, I worked at the UK Met Office. We used a very strange mix of units there, largely influenced by aviation usage. Altitude in feet (unless you were dealing with things in the upper atmosphere, in which case we would use kilometres); distance in metres when talking about visibility, but nautical miles for distances between locations; speed in knots; temperature in C; pressure in hPa. This was over 20 years ago - I don't know if that is still the standard. Iapetus (talk) 13:01, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]