It makes more sense to YOU because you've used it since early life, so you have created an mental model for it. Countries with metric system, people have done the same.
As one example, In a recent after-work conversation, some one mentioned the stupidity of the "stone" measurement, upon the Italian, Canadian, Japanese, American, Swedish, Mexican, Chinese and the Russian all agreed it was the most non-intuitive stupid thing they have ever heard. Except the Brit at the place, who (in vain) tried to explain how it made sense and made "more sense to humans"
These "intuitiveness" arguments are silly. It's whatever you're used to. So with that realisation, we may as well choose the more universally self-consistent and useful system, which is indisputably metric.
Careful, that's a British pint. An American pint is closer to 400mL.
I do not disagree with the above, I can totally see that being done (hell, when we didn't have a measure out while hiking with my friends we used "5 iPhones long" as a temporary measurement)
Problem is of course, that I can't see how that measurement can ever scale well beyond one medieval towns market place as a measurement, let alone a country, kingdom or a territory without confusion. It is ambiguous. Just as the example you said, it is easy for a fraudster to pick up any rock and claim that one to resemble the standard rock unit and get some unfair trading advantage. It is too easy to trample with. The purpose of measurement is exactly to REMOVE ambiguity, and establish a STANDARDS just as we established common languages for communication.
And on a side note, usage of the "stone measurement" was officially prohibited for commercial use in 1985 in UK. It is apparently still used for body-weight, but I guess there ambiguity can be preferred ;)
Updating measurement unit according to societal needs is only natural, and the purpose of the Stone story in my comment was that, even among so many different national (with different culture, language, metric system) they thought the Stone measurement made no sense today. Except the Brit that had a mental model for it. Which was the point: sometime mental model can seem like an good argument, but as the Canadian and American also thought stone was dumb, (While everyone else in the room thought imperial units were dumb) they kind of proved that their argument for imperial units was also not found on good basis.
There was an xkcd comic with lists of ready-to-go mental models about metric units for people who grew up without them:
Juice is also bought by the liter, usually in 2L bottles for a family dinner, or 500mL bottles for one person alone.
Strange what you say about milk though - I've usually seen the 2l form factor anywhere westerners are common. Could be a local convention?
Different European countries produced different fruits (citrus, apples etc), but I've not noticed that e.g. apple juice is in larger containers in Britain, and orange juice in Spain. If anything, the trend is to smaller containers, for variety and health.
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/goods/building-blo...
In most countries you could go your whole life without having to know what a "gallon" is or even hearing the word.
I do understand that it is hard to adjust intuitions from one system to the other, but I can't imagine how someone can think that people have problems using the measurement system they learned in primary school.
Most people in the world just buy their petrol per liter directly and it's priced at <currency amount> / liter, there is no conversion needed, the "gallon" is just an arbitrary measure.
Actually that is the "official" way of measurement (what you see on the car specifications or what the on board computer tells you), in speaking it is more common to say that you made 22 Km/liter (or 18, etc.) than to say you used 4.55 liters/100 Km (or 5.56 liters/100 Km).
So you had (say) 30 liters needed to refill and travelled for 450 Km, now is it easier to divide 30 by 450 and multiply by 100 ( or divide 30 by 4.5) or divide 450 by 30?
Besides the difference between (say) 18 and 19 Km/l is (IMHO) easier to visualize/appreciate than the difference between 5.56 and 5.26 l/100 km.
It depends.
Here (Italy) most petrol stations are self-service/with automated machine for payments.
If I buy in cash I buy gasoline "per money", i.e. 20 Euro or 50 Euro, you don't have any alternatives if not multiples of the bills.
If I buy paying with a card then I still try (roughly) to meet the amount.
I am not really aware that today 50 Euro will give me (say) 27.476 liters while last week (still say) it gave me 27.187 liters.
One desirable property with the SI system is how compatible they are: a cube with 10cm sides is a liter, so it’s easy to imagine the space requirements for a 40 liter tank. A gallon is 231 cubic inches, which is much less natural to work with.
Say, I walk into a bar. I order a beer. Here (in The Netherlands), since I didn't specify, I get a small beer of whatever's on tap. A small beer is 250ml-350ml, depending on the establishment. I could also order a half liter (500ml) or ask for a pitcher. So, just as in the US you don't order "can I have 128 fluid ounces of beer" you don't order "250ml of beer" in the rest of the world. Also, the fact that it 'sounds exotic' says more about you than about the system... and 'guaranteed not as exact'? Really? Let's say you have to measure a gallon of water, and I have to measure a liter. I just whip out a digital kitchen scale and measure 1000 grams. Which is EXACTLY the same amount as 1000 milliliters. Cause, you know, metric units are interchangeable. I double dare you to come up with a more exact measurement in Imperial units using simple kitchen tools.
Traveler beware: Just because it's true that a Dutch "vaasje" glass is 230-330ml[1] the actual volume of beer you get is at best 80% of that. The Dutch pouring practice of handing patrons a glass of beer with up to 1/4 receding foam on the top would cause a riot across the channel.
> [...]and measure 1000 grams. Which is EXACTLY the same amount as 1000 milliliters[...]
No, not exactly. Not even under standard conditions. It's one of the unfortunate warts of the modern metric system that the actual value drifted from exactly 1000, almost, but not exactly[2].
You order a quart when you want a quarter of a gallon in the US.
You order a "Viertelliter" (quarter of a Liter" when you want a quarter of a Liter in Germany.
How is one quarter less precise / more exotic than the other?
Most places, I think, most people don't talk in precise units at all. Give me a glass of water. Put in a pinch of salt. One scoop of coffee. Handful of peanuts. It is my personal experience that this tracks pretty well across any culture. In my opinion, having these oddball measuring units is an easier mental model. A couple tablespoons is human sounding. 30ml is not, even if you have a 15ml spoon. A cup of water sounds human, a quarterliter does not. I'm not trying to insult you or your system, I'm just expressing my own opinion, which as pointed out, probably comes from my own education and experience.
And the litre isn't? Sorry, I fail to see your argument here.
To take the example of the F150 there's a 26 gallon fuel tank, but then the engine size in in liters, transmission fluid is in quarts, windshield washer reservoir in liters etc.
Even on the most popular American-made car in the US you need to deal with an absolute mess of different measurement systems, on e.g. a German-made car all of these would be metric.
Thus e.g. a 245/45 R17 tire has a diameter of around 26 inches. As you can deduct from the "simple" formula of:
245/10*45/100/2.54*2+17 =~ 25.7
1. https://www.moderntiredealer.com/8644/understanding-tire-dim...
I'm guessing that why they were sold in those amounts vs some other choice. It's just my experience though.
The US pint is 16 ounces, vs the Imperial pint of 20 ounces. That's because no one really wants that much American beer.
In Australia, standard beer glass size varies from state to state -- here in NSW we have a schooner (at 425ml) or if you're after something smaller, a middy (285ml).
Using metric does not mean you need to always and only drink 1 litre of beer, drive at 100km an hour, constantly stoop so you're 1m tall, etc.
Good for them.
> In Australia, standard beer glass size varies from state to state -- here in NSW we have a schooner (at 425ml) or if you're after something smaller, a middy (285ml).
I know. You can buy a yard of ale in the UK at participating outlets. None of that has any relevance to whether a pint is more convenient than a litre. A schooner is more convenient than a litre.
> Using metric does not mean you need to always and only drink 1 litre of beer, drive at 100km an hour, constantly stoop so you're 1m tall, etc.
I'm arguing against dogmatism, not for it.
But one pint versus one litre doesn't have relevance to anything, does it?
It seems you've heard the suggestion to adopt a sensible, integrated, and (much more) widely used measurement system -- and are choosing to argue against specific numbers / quantities of things.
Originally you said 'a litre [of beer] is too big as you'll end up with a flat beer'.
Metric doesn't mean you must sell, buy, or drink beer in round numbers.
And by "pint of beer", do you mean an Imperial pint (568 mL) or a US liquid pint (473 mL)?
Using a conversion as a justification just isn't a fair comparison.
The error has nothing to do with units of measurements chosen. You cannot measure exactly 1.(0) gallon [1.0000000000… gallon with infinite number of zeroes] of liquid with absolute accuracy either.
In engineering this would be resolved with something like 500 ± 10 mL.
In consumer goods there are either regulations or you get, say, 505 mL so you have nothing to complain about. And you would never be able to tell the difference.
By the way, ML is megaliter. Milliliter is mL.
[1] unfortunately https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_(unit) leaves me no wiser as to what volume the unit "shit tun" might measure.
I'm pretty sure this is an attempt at humor. Or I'm not sure but I hope.
Converting between the units is a pain: not because the conversion is hard (the conversion ratios are usually whole numbers), but rather because there's a lot of units and it's difficult to remember how they relate to each other (e.g. what's the relation between a pint and a gallon?).
A US gallon is 3.785 litres. A UK gallon is 4.546 litres.
Which if these is more human-sized?
The US gallon since they've got more people per capita.
Meaning, the phrase "gallon of milk" is ever so slightly easier to say/verbalize than "four liters of milk." Or alternatively, "half gallon of milk" vs "two liters of milk."
Likewise: "pint of beer" vs. "<half liter/5 deciliters> of beer", "1 cup of flour" vs. "<quarter liter/250 mL/25 centiliters/120 grams> of flour".