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Comment by 7952 | Hacker News Reader

A lot of those things are not actively measured but are more experiential or used as an approximation. Height in feet is about how tall someone is, not their exact height. A mile to the pub is about how long it will take to walk, not the exact distance. Younger Brits will tend to use these terms in conversation but revert to metric more when something actually needs to be measured.

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I don't recognize the 'vibiness' of imperial length and distance measurements at all. Perhaps this is a pareidolic interpretation which came to you when you noticed people using both sets of measurement types?

> A mile to the pub is about how long it will take to walk, not the exact distance. Younger Brits will tend to use these terms in conversation but revert to metric more when something actually needs to be measured.

Doesn't this get confusing when all traffic and road signs, car instruments, etc. are in miles and miles per hour?

Don't even think about fuel efficiency ratings (MPG) vs. petrol dispense volume (L).

You don't typically need to reason about those numbers though. You know what 30mph feels like.

I can’t remember when I last heard a Brit of any age use kilometres in any context.

People who are into running/cycling use "K" a lot, personally I think it's because once someone starts talking in km, if you use miles your stats will look bad by comparison. I know trackers/apps probably had this as default from the start because Europe=metric but so did a lot of satnavs and it didn't change our language in the same way.

It's incredibly common to use km here, and miles.

I assume that, as in the US, SI units are used in many scientific and technical contexts.

It’s kilometres specifically that I hear used rarely in the Uk. Other SI units are relatively common I agree.

mm is used constantly in engineering and km will be used for long distances in professional settings.

Metres and mm I hear a lot but kilometres very little - mainly because of miles on road signs. I guess the last reference I remember is to 5K runs.

It's rare to need kilometres in engineering, but I know from a friend that works at Network Rail that everything is done in kilometres, except final conversions on many older railway lines where the mileposts still measure miles.

Those small blue signs at the side of motorways, and the white emergency location posts, both use kilometres.

>It's rare to need kilometres in engineering

Yeah, the thing with imperial units and engineering is that once you get anywhere near mass, weight, force, energy, and all the related units for same, it can get very confusing and error prone. So are we talking pounds-mass, pounds-force, or slugs? (The latter being something that probably no one who didn't take engineering/physics/etc. classes has ever heard of.)

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