American Customary Measurements: Difference between revisions

 

==Distance==

 

Since 1959, the foot has been internationally defined as exactly 30.48 cm. For historical compatibility, though, real estate maps are still drawn in the older "survey feet", which are 1200⁄3937, or about .3048006 m long.

 

==Temperature==

The standard unit of temperature in the United States is the degree Fahrenheit (See below for Celsius equivalent). The boiling point of water at sea level is 212° and its freezing point is 32°. Fun fact: the distance between freezing and boiling is 180°; this was intended by Daniel Fahrenheit as it would make it easier to mark a rotary-gauge thermometer: 180 angular degrees could equal 180 temperature degrees.

 

The standard unit of American money is called the ''dollar'', presumably from the German word "Taler"<ref>possibly indirectly through the Spanish eight-real coin, called the Spanish Dollar (and occasionally the ''Dollero'') because of its resemblance to the ''taler'' coin. The Spanish Dollars were more popular in early America for their finer silver.</ref> which was used for various now obsolete currencies and is originally derived from "Joachimsthal", a town in Bohemia where coins were minted. It is subdivided into 100 individual units, ''cents''. Each cent is in turn further divided into 10 ''mills'', a unit of currency largely rendered hypothetical through inflation (except in the price of gasoline, although property-tax rates are often expressed in mills), of which there are 1000 in a dollar. Each cent is one one hundredth of a dollar, and comes in the form of a small coin made of <s>copper</s> <s>wax</s> <s>bronze</s> <s>steel</s> zinc with a copper coating.

 

Other coins are the nickel, five cents; the dime, ten cents; the quarter, 25 cents; the half-dollar (guess); and various editions of a one-dollar coin. The half-dollar lost favor after 1965, and the dollar coin never really caught on. 50-cent pieces don't even fit in most vending machines, though dollar coins are sometimes given as change in the newer ones. Those not accustomed to US currency sometimes find it counterintuitive that the dime is physically smaller than the penny, and all the common dollar coins are similar in size to the quarter. (Dollar coins were larger than the half-dollar prior to 1979, but the half-dollar coin is already at or near the upper limit of how large a coin a person wants to carry around.) The size disparities are the legacy of pre-1965 silver coinage - the dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar were made from a silver alloy, and the dime weighed (and still does) 1/10 that of the "silver dollar". The nickel was and is still made of a copper-nickel alloy, hence the name; most dollar coins minted these days are at least intended to look golden. On top of that, the dime does not say "10 cents" on it; it says "one dime", and you're expected to figure out that that comes from the French for "one tenth" - di(s)me.

 

 

==Food labeling in the US==

As mentioned above, the food industry was one of the few to <s>embrace</s> be legally required to use the metric system during the failed attempt at forced conversion in the US, so food packaging is, outside of school, the place where most Americans encounter the metric system. Since there are few laws regarding the use of metric units, different foods tend to use metric and American units in different ways on packaging. Most of the time, either the American or the metric unit will be indicated first, with its equivalent indicated thereafter in parentheses. Some examples are as follows:

 

Prescription drugs, on the other hand, are labeled in metric units, because the amounts in question are usually so tiny as to render the conventional units meaningless, plus the fact that we're deep into scientist territory here. One may occasionally find a medicine bottle with weight indicated in grains, though they're today extremely rare.

 

Beer is generally sold in 6-packs, with 6 bottles or cans measuring 12 fl. oz. each. Some beers may be sold in loose bottles of larger sizes from 16 oz. (colloquially, a "tallboy") to 40 oz. (a "forty") Many bars often have pints available as well as pitchers for larger parties; glass mugs of approximately one liter are also fairly common, particularly in areas settled by people from southern Germany (e.g. the Upper Midwest). A pitcher of beer contains roughly 60 oz, or five bottles' worth. Some bars and restaurants specializing in beer will sell drafts in 20 oz "English" pints. Wine and spirits are typically sold in 750 mL bottles, 750 mL being the round metric number that most closely approximates the pre-metric bottle size of 1/5 gallon (a "fifth"). These bottles, as well as the half-size 375 mL bottles, are still colloquially referred to as pints and fifths despite their volume being slightly less than either. (These terms are more commonly used with spirits; many people just call 750 mL of wine a "bottle", though there are various archaic names for the larger sizes, including "Magnum" for a 1.5L, "Jeroboam" for a 3L, or "Methuselah" for a 6L, all the way up to the 30L "Melchizedek".) Spirits are also sold in 1.75 L bottles, which are colloquially called "handles" after [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|the carrying handle such bottles usually have]], or "half-gallons" or "half-g's" because they hold slightly less than half a gallon of spirits.

 

The alcoholic strength of spirits is described as a percentage of alcohol by volume, and, in the case of spirits, by "degrees proof", where 1 proof = 0.5% ABV. (Contrast British degrees proof, wherein 100 proof equals the point at which gunpowder moistened by the spirit is still capable of ignition, i.e. 57.15% a.b.v, or 114.3 American proof).

 

Marijuana is usually purchased in weights measuring 1/8th of an ounce, or it is measured in grams for smaller quantities. The same goes for "magic" psilocybin mushrooms. Cocaine is sold by the gram or 8-ball, which is 3.5 grams (just under 1/8 of an ounce hence the name). LSD can come in liquid form, measured in micrograms, or is sold on cardboard strips known as "blotters." Drugs like Ecstasy typically come in quarter-gram pills, which are sold individually (though the weight of active MDMA in the pill will be substantially lower than that). There's an old joke that "drugs are God's way of teaching Americans the metric system."