Built like a Mercedes (?)

If I may say so, that's just a silly non-sequitur. The fact remains that you have been given the exact ratio of the UK and US gallons, which you somehow seek to deny.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Amazing how people can be so certain that they are right in the face of EVIDENCE that they are, in fact, WRONG!

Try this web page:

Here is a quote from it:

1 U.S. fluid ounce = 29.5735295625 mililitres ~= 1.041 Imperial fluid ounces

See that? A US FL Oz. is NOT the same as an Imperial Fl. Oz. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, a US Fl Oz is slightly larger than an Imperial Fl. Oz.

As for "living in Canada": so what? Some of us have actually lived in different countries! In my kitchen, I have both Imperial pint measure jugs and US pint measure jugs -- I think that trumps your "I've lived next door to the US".

In my industry, US-based companies switched about 20 years ago from using inches to using SI units.

Regarding rulers, though: ever tried to buy a metric ruler (or any metric measure) in a hardware store? They seem to be either unavailable or very rare.

I think the purely metric ones are fairly rare, but I've got a Lufkin metric/inch combination tape measure that came from Lowe's. I use it a

*lot* more than I expected.

OK, so there is a 4% difference. For all practical purposes they are the same. For all practical purposes there are 5 US quarts in an imperial gallon.

For all practical purposes, a fifth of liquor is 26 imperal ounces, or a "twenty sixer" Closer than 750ml, which is the metric"equivalent" and since the seventies or eighties has replaced the"fifth" in the US.

I'm not discussing this any further - you want to nit-pick - nit-pick.

*** Free account sponsored by SecureIX.com *** *** Encrypt your Internet usage with a free VPN account from ***

>

My original statement was that the ratio was closer to 5/6 than 4/5. You wrote that I was wrong about this. Well, guess what: YOU WERE WRONG!

Check out what others posted: you will find that the 5/6 ratio is fairly close.

Translation: You just won't admit that you were wrong. If you did not want to discuss it, why even post your last response?

You amaze me with how much you think you know.

We have not always hated the french, just lately when they decided it was more important to steal money from the Iraqi people and allow SH to murder women and children, and to attempt to prevent the US from putting a stop to it.

Remember how to tell if someone is french? Are they waving a white flag?

************************* Dave

Sure sounds like you are.

************************* Dave

I'll drink to that.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

I am an american and I love the french. We would not have a country without them.

Also could all of you people STOP this crossposting madness? I know you do drift back on topic at times, but still this is absurd.

Perhaps you could all (all 5 of you) start a new newsgroup alt.dumb.crossposters.

Marty PS yes I know I am guilty also.

There are now 974 messages in this conversation from 49 authors. Why stop now? Besides which I don't even know what the topic is. I know what it says in the subject line but that is irrelevant. Does anyone actually know what the topic is? I think it may be about trains and cars.

Huw

Things are *not* very different up here in Canada, and it would be disingenuous to suggest they are. Sure, the highways are signed in km/h and the motor fuel is sold in litres. That's the primary main difference! You can still walk into any supermarket's deli counter and ask for a quarter-pound of smoked meat, a half-pound of marble cheddar sliced about 1/8-inch thick, and two pounds of fresh mozzarella, without any problem. The label printed on what you get might call out

115g of smoked meat, 225g of marble cheddar sliced 3mm thick, and 900g of fresh mozzarella, but you never have to ask in metric. Likewise, people still talk about IKEA being about 3 miles away, and just you *try* getting anything metric at Rona or Home Despot. Nope, everything's inch, from the fluorescent tubes to the lumber, plumbing supplies, electrical terminals and fasteners. You can get USS and SAE thread machine screws in a whole huge range of sizes, but only one or two metric sizes. I had to drive clear across town to Brafasco to get some 4mm screws just this week after calling half a dozen large and small Toronto-area hardware and home warehouse stores without success.

Darn, Daniel, I had been considering posting a "electrical engineering standards have never been non-metric" gloat, but I hadn't considered the actual fittings, wires, etc.

FloydR ;->

Things are *not* very different up here in Canada, and it would be disingenuous to suggest they are. Sure, the highways are signed in km/h and the motor fuel is sold in litres. That's the primary main difference! You can still walk into any supermarket's deli counter and ask for a quarter-pound of smoked meat, a half-pound of marble cheddar sliced about 1/8-inch thick, and two pounds of fresh mozzarella, without any problem. The label printed on what you get might call out

115g of smoked meat, 225g of marble cheddar sliced 3mm thick, and 900g of fresh mozzarella, but you never have to ask in metric. Likewise, people still talk about IKEA being about 3 miles away, and just you *try* getting anything metric at Rona or Home Despot. Nope, everything's inch, from the fluorescent tubes to the lumber, plumbing supplies, electrical terminals and fasteners. You can get USS and SAE thread machine screws in a whole huge range of sizes, but only one or two metric sizes. I had to drive clear across town to Brafasco to get some 4mm screws just this week after calling half a dozen large and small Toronto-area hardware and home warehouse stores without success.

Yes Daniel but...

Well, keep in mind that Toronto is a bit more cosmopolitan than say, where I live. You ask the kids in the groery store for a pound of sliced ham and you get a bit of a blank stare till them remember that that's 454 grams.

I think the know this becuase marijuana is sold by the gram.

Temperature is a better example of this. I remember the day (sep 6/77, I *think*) Canada switched to metric... I was dirving to aforementioned uni.

I know what 72F means or 80F. You tell me it's gonna be 21 tomorrow and I *think* that's warm. I think. Maybe. I dunno.

The point is kids that have grown up withit and know nothing else have taken to metric 100%. Some of us old farts. Now OTOH my parents know about all this celcius stuff so go figure.

I like grams for grocerty stuff, it's more precise, but celcius is more course than farenheit and not as usefull, to me anyway.

I don't know anybody that used kilometers for distance. That's aoways miles, and miage is always "miles per gallon" here from what I see, not l/100km or whatever.

Good point, I missed that. You'd probably have a better chance finding Whitworth thread bolt here than metric in the small villiage in Canada that I live in.

"And my dad has all the wrenches"

crap. I do not know anyone that uses F ... everyone, and I mean everyone uses C. What the hell, why do the US use an old antiquated german system of temperature... Farenheit.... give me a break. 0 was as cold as he could get it and at the upper end he put 100 F when he in fact had a fever. SI, the greatest thing Napoleon ever did.

Crap again. if you are an old foggy I'm sure the store is not going to turn you away when you order in pounds .... hell, they still use pounds in germany.... Most reasonably well educated - even those that are not - typically use g/kg when ordering .... about the only place I still see lbs used mostly if not exclusively is when giving your weight and well, who'd want to use newtons anyway.

The label printed on what you get might call out

not in my world.... I drive 100kph and the speed limits are 100 kph and I know something 100 km away will take 1 hr. ..... so simple. I do not know of anyone in miles/hr or even when talking cars who is NOT using liters/100km it's just so much easier. I guess you are older.....

go figure..... that's because home depost is american. Rona is a different story, no problem with metric. However, considering Canada's economy is geared to the US's not much of a suprise to see imperial used

,

listen, metric and imperial are equally present. Personally I've got a fair set of tools and only my ratchet has 3/8" on it.... everything else is metric. I guess it is a fair statement that IF you want to close your eyes to metric you can still do it.... but not much longer. Kids have no idea of imperial anymore..... except, as I said, weight.

cheers

Well hell you also order meat at your friendly charcuterie in FRANCE of all places in pounds (livres). Germany has its zentners (100 pounds, not kg). A lot of (most?) tires and even bicycles in Europe are measured in inches. (I have a bitch with tire sizings everywhere, why do they need to combine inches and millimeters with tire sizes? Pick one system and stick with it).

I don't mind Fahrenheit at all. With whole numbers, you get more precision with Fahrenheit than you do with Celsius. Not sure how a numberi can be antiquated.

Heh, in UK it's common to give you weight in stones.

I never did figure out why litres per 100 km. When you are stopped, you instantaneous economy is infinity. How do you average that? Similarily as your economy improves it is a limit to zero. 100 km per litre or just km per litre sure would make a lot more sense mathmatically.

Imperial? US doesn't use imperial gallons, generally.

You could say the same thing about tools in USA. If you're going to do much you need both systems. Here I wish everything was SI, but tool companies like the current situation I suppose.