I gained a niece and a nephew in the last few weeks. They were about the normal size for babies, which is about 8 pounds plus a few shillings. I know this is roughly what babies often weigh. But I do not know why we weigh babies in currency.
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What really grates is that I can’t get some imperial measures out of my head. Like the baby thing. What does an average baby weigh in kilogrammes? (About three and a half, but I had to look it up, even though one of my kids was born in Germany.)
The US gets a lot of flack for not having gone metric, but it seems that places that have gone metric still haven’t fully gone metric.
The pub is a mile (about 19,296 yards, or three times as many feet) down the road and they are served beer in pints (about 78 and three eighths fluid ounces). It’s just not fair.
Not sure of the reference here. A mile is 1760 yards on this side of the pond.
I live very much in the metric system, and we weigh babies in (metric) pounds, too (although on the announcement cards it’s usually mentioned in grammes, if at all). I think it’s because “8 pounds” sounds more impressive and less like a good size for a sack of potatoes.
“Not sure of the reference here. A mile is 1760 yards on this side of the pond.”
I assume it’s a randomly chosen awkward number to highlight the silly conversions in imperial units. A pint is an integer number of fluid ounces too rather than 78 3/8.
If the US went metric, a dozen eggs would be ten and a baker’ dozen eleven. Charts showing decimal fractions of an inch to 64ths would be obsolete. The recycled cellulostic waste and useless signage industries would implode, leaving the US no industry at all other than bribing Federal oversight.
This all started when Ridgid calendars were banned from mechanics bays after forced hiring of LGBT seat warmers who were “offended.” Give them ties to wear while working over lathes to restore hairy-knuckled achieving America.