We kind of do have metric inches, insofar as machinists work in 'thou’s (thousands of an inch) But that’s kind of specialist
Comment on 5 tomatoes
Flamekebab@piefed.social 16 hours ago
I wish we had a metric inch because the fuzziness can be useful.
"How small do you need these veggies diced?"
"2.5cm ish" vs. "about an inch"
I feel like the implied margin of error is much larger for inches, which make them useful for many things where precision isn't necessarily desirable (hemming, wargaming, moving furniture, etc..). If I'm wargaming having a limit on rounding is useful (half an inch - either round up or down), assuming I'm playing at a scale that uses inches.
Feet I have no use for, with one exception - adult human height between 5' 2" and 6' 2". There I find metric too precise (whereas to the nearest inch accounts for variance in sole thickness, hair volume, etc.).
I wasn't raised on imperial (and I'm baffled that people younger than me in the UK still talk about stones. Sixteen stone is fat, sure, but I've no idea how fat if not told in kilos) but I find inches to have their uses.
Also miles for cars - because common speeds are ~60 and ~30 mph so a road sign effectively gives the time to arrival (e.g. 13 miles on a motorway = about 13 minutes). I don't use them for actually measuring distance on a map but they're handy when driving.
deltapi@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
antler@feddit.online 11 hours ago
Thousandths of an inch are also used in some engineering applications and are called "mils." Not to be confused with millimeters.
colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz 16 hours ago
Why not say ‘2-3 cm’ for the first one? Or ‘a couple centimeters’? It doesn’t feel too different from saying ‘about an inch’ to me
kameecoding@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Taking it even further who the fuck uses inches or cms for vegetable cutting measurements anyway, it’s like, one or two fingers thick
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
Do you want to develop imperial measurements? Because that’s how you invent imperial measurements. Next thing you know you’ve got a cup that’s really good for measuring liquids and a couple spoons you like to scoop with…
UpperBroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
Why not make it even more ambiguous by specifying the desired cutting width in “circumference of my dick”.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
That’s too thin
HoopyFrood@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
Would that be flacid dick inches or erect dick inches?
Flamekebab@piefed.social 14 hours ago
Recipes I use regularly say "2cm chunks" and the like. I've never seen one measure in fingers.
Flamekebab@piefed.social 14 hours ago
It's to do with how I think about numbers, rounding, and margins of error. I don't know how to express that better, I'm sorry.
I was not raised using inches for anything. It's not a cultural thing, it's a use case I've found them useful for.