gallons???

[Ami]

I agree that a forum wide switch to litres would be confusing, but surely not as confusing as the differences in US and UK gallons? Litres are easy peasy - 1,000ml = 1l. None of this 128/160fl ounces to a gallon lark (excuse me if I've got that wrong, it's all so complicated.... )

Anyway, I didn't even know there was a difference until I joined this forum! Why is there a difference?

We could always pin a thread with conversions for anyone confused.

Ami

 

[andywg]

IIRC:

In the US 1 pint = 16 fluid ounces
In the UK 1 pint = 20 fluid ounces

And from there spouts the difference.

 

[jmccalip]

I vote Gallons. Every time someone posts using liters, I'm confused.

 

[the_faze]

I doubt that it will be possoble to make all in a public forum that includes people for all over the world to use one standard.

But what I think would be possible is to ask people to specify the unit of measurement that they are using. For example when stating the size do it as follows:

10 gal US
10 gal UK
and well liters are self explanitory

This would make it so that whoever wanted, could make the appropriate conversion using the convenient calculators posted here.

Unit Converters

 

[abstract]

most people do specify the units they are using, and if they don't everyone assumes it is US gallons by default....

and i'm sorry, but it is not very hard to go to Google and type in any conversion you want it to do for you...

XX uk gallons to us gallons
xx liters to uk gallons
xx litres to us gallons
xx liters to cups
xx centimeters to inches

and so on and so on..

i dont know about you all, but from having to figure out what size liters are compared to gallons and centimeters vs inches so many times, i can pretty much estimate the size of xxx liters to gallons or xxx cm to inches fairly easily now

 

[Bloo]

yeah abstract you would have thought that - but most people seem to have a memory of a (uh.... would that be fish ? ) and don't remember - or don't care to remember....
and what irks me are people asking "how many gallons is xxx"?

Come one ! it takes two seconds (not even) to look up - surely it takes longer to type out the question and wait for a repy.

Sigh.....

 

[abstract]

Sigh.....

i second that notion ... deep breath

 

[Hels]

well... seems i've opened a can of worms...


thanks for your replies everybody!

i've made a poll so lets have your votes! ...

 

[zig]

Google is good, i use it all the time for quick measurement reference, but it is a pain no doubt about it, but i think overall Americans are at a disadvantage as metric isnt the norm, it was only about 3 years that American stock markets went metric so they have quite a bit of catching up to do.

 

[Ami]

IIRC:

In the US 1 pint = 16 fluid ounces
In the UK 1 pint = 20 fluid ounces

And from there spouts the difference.

Erm....so why are there 16 fluid ounces in a US pint when there's 20 in a UK one?

This is a helpful page for those who're not used to doing the conversions:
http/www.simetric.co.uk/

 

[Synirr]

Google is good, i use it all the time for quick measurement reference, but it is a pain no doubt about it, but i think overall Americans are at a disadvantage as metric isnt the norm, it was only about 3 years that American stock markets went metric so they have quite a bit of catching up to do.

Indeed. I wish we could all just convert to metric to simplify things, but it's very difficult to get an entire country to start using a different measure. I think they need to stop teaching the Imperial system in US schools altogether so that the next generation grows up using the metric system

Here's a neat website of various conversions and measures, some of which some of us have probably never even heard of:
http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_unit

 

[Teelie]

The problem with that is a lot of measurements are still in imperial so you'll have plenty of kids knowing metric but at a loss for how to use imperial. At least most things packaged in stores are in both units now and so do the spedometers on vehicles. Other things, most notably speed limits are still imperial only though.