I don’t get why Americans are doing their best to avoid the metric system. It’s always weird discriptions. Like dishwashers, or in this case, half a giraffe. Just use bananas if (cubic) meters are too complex.
It’s not like we don’t have imperial units to use. It’s just easier to visualize an object you’re familiar with than 20ft/6m or whatever other unit. Giraffes is a strange choice though.
Friends of mine are expecting a child. They have an app to compare the current size of the baby. It has the weirdest choices:
Wedding cake (they are always the same size? Depends on the budget right? So if you’re rich your child is bigger than when you’re poor, when it’s the wedding cake size?)
flat box of chocolates (always the same size? Flat child?)
small popcorn bucket
small pinguin (there are so many differently sized small pinguïns)
cotton candy (last one I had was huge, I feel sorry for the woman with a child that size in their womb)
maki
jackfruit
rhubarb (so it’s a stick shaped child?)
kitten (a grows the most as a kitten. They are kitten for the first year. It’s like saying the size of your baby is the size of a baby.)
I have no clue what these sizes are exactly. I do know what 10cm or 20cm is.
Yeah sorry, based on assumption. Because the US (plus a few tiny islands) refuses to switch to metric even though imperial is obsolete and complicated. It’s also usual practice in the US to use weird things for measurements. Cars, dishwashers, etc.
So in this case it was a wrong assumption on my part.
It’s more of a journalist thing. They take the words out of your mouth to reach their own conclusion fast and deliver an answer that’ll fit inside the allocated screen time.
“When you heard that people use things instead of measurements to explain the size of other things, exactly how shocking was it to you?”
They describe these random things to avoid people talking about giraffes for hours.
I don’t get why Americans are doing their best to avoid the metric system. It’s always weird discriptions. Like dishwashers, or in this case, half a giraffe. Just use bananas if (cubic) meters are too complex.
Isn’t daily mail in the UK?
You mean wannabe US? (never truly accepted metric system, even discussed to change back to imperial)
Edit: fair point though. My bad.
As a USian, even we are baffled by measuring things in hands and stone.
Exactly. The only real unit is football fields.
It’s not like we don’t have imperial units to use. It’s just easier to visualize an object you’re familiar with than 20ft/6m or whatever other unit. Giraffes is a strange choice though.
Friends of mine are expecting a child. They have an app to compare the current size of the baby. It has the weirdest choices:
I have no clue what these sizes are exactly. I do know what 10cm or 20cm is.
People enjoy when things are compared in this way, it’s really not that shocking.
Other people (me) hate it.
Neat, thanks for letting us all know!
Why do people online caste Americans as the culprit when this is clearly from a British source?
Yeah sorry, based on assumption. Because the US (plus a few tiny islands) refuses to switch to metric even though imperial is obsolete and complicated. It’s also usual practice in the US to use weird things for measurements. Cars, dishwashers, etc.
So in this case it was a wrong assumption on my part.
I’m deeply sorry.
It’s more of a journalist thing. They take the words out of your mouth to reach their own conclusion fast and deliver an answer that’ll fit inside the allocated screen time.
“When you heard that people use things instead of measurements to explain the size of other things, exactly how shocking was it to you?”
They describe these random things to avoid people talking about giraffes for hours.