American Customary Measurements: Difference between revisions

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."