Brutkey

Kate Morley
@katemorley@hachyderm.io

Listen, itโ€™s very simple: In Britain we use the metric system, except for beer and milk, which come in pints. But not plant milk โ€” that comes in litres.

Oh, and distances are in miles. But only if theyโ€™re too far to walk โ€” if you can walk it itโ€™s in metres. If youโ€™re driving then your fuel efficiency is in miles-per-gallon, but petrol is sold in litres.

Oh, and your height is in feet and inches. If you donโ€™t care much about your weight itโ€™s in stone (but not pounds โ€” no-one can remember how many pounds are in a stone and itโ€™s hard to read the little tick marks on analogue scales). If you do care about your weight then your digital scales tell you it in kilograms.

Oh, and if thereโ€™s a heatwave then tabloids will forecast a โ€œ100ยฐF scorcherโ€. But if itโ€™s cold then itโ€™s an โ€œarctic blastโ€ with โ€œwidespread temperatures below 0ยฐCโ€.

I hope this clears things up.

Pip Gowenlock
@PipGowenlock@urbanists.social

@katemorley@hachyderm.io We're not very good at other people's languages because (a) Anglophone cultural domination and (b) all our brains are full of fudgey rules of thumb conversions.