Idle curiosity about stones and scales
Replies
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I am in SA - I have heard both.0
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I didn't know you were in SA too! I get used to every Aussie online being from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane!0
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Yep, sure am. Out in the sticks, in Whyalla.
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Kaygees is common in Australia as short hand for kilograms, we also just say kilos.
Same way for 'kays' is used for kms. eg We were doing 100 'kays" (100 km/hr) or it is 10 'kays' (10 km away).
Anyone under 40 is all metric, baby weights in pounds does still persist a bit.
If you are a scientist, metric is the only way to go, except if you are NASA , then you spend over 100 million on a orbiter and then sling it into space and miss your target because you insist on imperial and are working with the rest of the world that does metric and convert wrong.
Edited to add that although the UK is not in red, they confuse everyone else by unofficially persisting, especially with the stones business.
In New Zealand we call them kaygees and kilos too. K’s for kilometres.
My pet peeve, my iPhone wants to auto correct kilometre to kilometer - why do the Americans try to dictate the spelling when they don’t use them!!?!?!!??!!4 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »
Maybe lesdart is mistaken and her DIL is Australian, not American.
My DIL is definitely American - I can tell the difference and she and my son have visited her parents several times since they got married. However, they met in Africa - both working in Malawi. She is a graduate with a science degree, she may have learnt to use metric measures while studying and built on this while in Malawi.
I like Lolinloggens explanation - the "gee" helps to distinguish Kg from Km. I do use "kays" for Km and "mills" for ml.
It is hard to lose that instinctive use of imperial measures - I can't tell you how many hours I spent learning those complicated units as a small child in the '50's, and most of my contemporaries still use them so I have to convert back when talking with anyone over 400 -
ContraryMaryMary wrote: »Kaygees is common in Australia as short hand for kilograms, we also just say kilos.
Same way for 'kays' is used for kms. eg We were doing 100 'kays" (100 km/hr) or it is 10 'kays' (10 km away).
Anyone under 40 is all metric, baby weights in pounds does still persist a bit.
If you are a scientist, metric is the only way to go, except if you are NASA , then you spend over 100 million on a orbiter and then sling it into space and miss your target because you insist on imperial and are working with the rest of the world that does metric and convert wrong.
Edited to add that although the UK is not in red, they confuse everyone else by unofficially persisting, especially with the stones business.
In New Zealand we call them kaygees and kilos too. K’s for kilometres.
My pet peeve, my iPhone wants to auto correct kilometre to kilometer - why do the Americans try to dictate the spelling when they don’t use them!!?!?!!??!!
More to the point, why do Americans insist on using imperial? It is a measuring system that makes no logical sense.1 -
I don't think in stones, but my scale has a switch for all 3 common units: kg, lb, and st.0
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It’s liquid measurements where I really struggle. Often see people here having the target to drink a set number of ounces of water and I can’t convert that at all. Although people in the UK still refer to pints of milk, for water it tends to be litres. I definitely have to google conversions here although I think there are 8 pints in a gallon so get that a gallon is a lot of liquid! And 16 ounces to a pound but for liquid ounces - no idea!1
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I have Weight Watcher scales and they can give weight in stones/lbs and kgs with a flick of a button - I'm in the UK, I think in all three but mostly I refer to myself as being 9 stone to anyone who would ask IRL.0
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lesdarts180 wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »
Maybe lesdart is mistaken and her DIL is Australian, not American.
My DIL is definitely American - I can tell the difference and she and my son have visited her parents several times since they got married. However, they met in Africa - both working in Malawi. She is a graduate with a science degree, she may have learnt to use metric measures while studying and built on this while in Malawi.
I like Lolinloggens explanation - the "gee" helps to distinguish Kg from Km. I do use "kays" for Km and "mills" for ml.
It is hard to lose that instinctive use of imperial measures - I can't tell you how many hours I spent learning those complicated units as a small child in the '50's, and most of my contemporaries still use them so I have to convert back when talking with anyone over 40
That makes sense. As Lynn said, it's definitely not a particularly American thing.0 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »ContraryMaryMary wrote: »Kaygees is common in Australia as short hand for kilograms, we also just say kilos.
Same way for 'kays' is used for kms. eg We were doing 100 'kays" (100 km/hr) or it is 10 'kays' (10 km away).
Anyone under 40 is all metric, baby weights in pounds does still persist a bit.
If you are a scientist, metric is the only way to go, except if you are NASA , then you spend over 100 million on a orbiter and then sling it into space and miss your target because you insist on imperial and are working with the rest of the world that does metric and convert wrong.
Edited to add that although the UK is not in red, they confuse everyone else by unofficially persisting, especially with the stones business.
In New Zealand we call them kaygees and kilos too. K’s for kilometres.
My pet peeve, my iPhone wants to auto correct kilometre to kilometer - why do the Americans try to dictate the spelling when they don’t use them!!?!?!!??!!
More to the point, why do Americans insist on using imperial? It is a measuring system that makes no logical sense.
It's hard to switch once you learn one way as a kid, and we haven't been forced to.
I actually prefer grams to oz, since neither has really an intuitive meaning for me, grams are on food packages, and I now do have a stronger sense of what grams equate to from weighing food. However, body weights in anything but pounds just don't mean anything to me without me doing the conversion into lbs, and same with measures in cm. 5K and 10K have meaning as distances, but I also just naturally think of them as 3.1 and 6.2 miles.0 -
It’s liquid measurements where I really struggle. Often see people here having the target to drink a set number of ounces of water and I can’t convert that at all. Although people in the UK still refer to pints of milk, for water it tends to be litres. I definitely have to google conversions here although I think there are 8 pints in a gallon so get that a gallon is a lot of liquid! And 16 ounces to a pound but for liquid ounces - no idea!
16 fl oz to a pint. ("A pint is a pound the world around." So does that mean a pint of milks costs a pound? ) 1 -
ContraryMaryMary wrote: »Kaygees is common in Australia as short hand for kilograms, we also just say kilos.
Same way for 'kays' is used for kms. eg We were doing 100 'kays" (100 km/hr) or it is 10 'kays' (10 km away).
Anyone under 40 is all metric, baby weights in pounds does still persist a bit.
If you are a scientist, metric is the only way to go, except if you are NASA , then you spend over 100 million on a orbiter and then sling it into space and miss your target because you insist on imperial and are working with the rest of the world that does metric and convert wrong.
Edited to add that although the UK is not in red, they confuse everyone else by unofficially persisting, especially with the stones business.
In New Zealand we call them kaygees and kilos too. K’s for kilometres.
My pet peeve, my iPhone wants to auto correct kilometre to kilometer - why do the Americans try to dictate the spelling when they don’t use them!!?!?!!??!!
Don't iPhones let you select a language? (English - U.S. v. English - U.K. ?) -- My Android phone, purchased in the U.S., allows me to choose English - Canada in addition to English - U.S.
If it won't, you should blame Apple, not "Americans."2 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »ContraryMaryMary wrote: »Kaygees is common in Australia as short hand for kilograms, we also just say kilos.
Same way for 'kays' is used for kms. eg We were doing 100 'kays" (100 km/hr) or it is 10 'kays' (10 km away).
Anyone under 40 is all metric, baby weights in pounds does still persist a bit.
If you are a scientist, metric is the only way to go, except if you are NASA , then you spend over 100 million on a orbiter and then sling it into space and miss your target because you insist on imperial and are working with the rest of the world that does metric and convert wrong.
Edited to add that although the UK is not in red, they confuse everyone else by unofficially persisting, especially with the stones business.
In New Zealand we call them kaygees and kilos too. K’s for kilometres.
My pet peeve, my iPhone wants to auto correct kilometre to kilometer - why do the Americans try to dictate the spelling when they don’t use them!!?!?!!??!!
More to the point, why do Americans insist on using imperial? It is a measuring system that makes no logical sense.
I think we have enough other problems that imperial vs metric is pretty low on the priority list.2 -
It’s liquid measurements where I really struggle. Often see people here having the target to drink a set number of ounces of water and I can’t convert that at all. Although people in the UK still refer to pints of milk, for water it tends to be litres. I definitely have to google conversions here although I think there are 8 pints in a gallon so get that a gallon is a lot of liquid! And 16 ounces to a pound but for liquid ounces - no idea!
I don't really ever use liquid measurements except on rare occasion following a recipe when I might break out the cup measure (or, hmm, if I'm making a smoothie with some kind of dairy or milk alternative and want to count calories, will use a cup then too -- US cup). Fluid oz only works for water so has never made a lot of sense to be as a measurement, and there's no real need for me to measure liquids on a regular basis. If I buy coffee I go by visual container size, and when I drink coffee or water I similarly just go by cup size.
I never understand why people think they need to drink to a target (I drink lots of water just naturally and would recommend using the pee color thing if one is concerned he or she is not drinking enough).
That I don't really drink liquids with calories probably relates to this.0 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »It’s liquid measurements where I really struggle. Often see people here having the target to drink a set number of ounces of water and I can’t convert that at all. Although people in the UK still refer to pints of milk, for water it tends to be litres. I definitely have to google conversions here although I think there are 8 pints in a gallon so get that a gallon is a lot of liquid! And 16 ounces to a pound but for liquid ounces - no idea!
16 fl oz to a pint. ("A pint is a pound the world around." So does that mean a pint of milks costs a pound? )
Sorry
, but here in UK a pint is 20 fluid ounces "A pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter". So a UK gallon is a lot more than a US gallon! Another point to remember when people talk about drinking a certain amount of water a day. 1 -
lesdarts180 wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »It’s liquid measurements where I really struggle. Often see people here having the target to drink a set number of ounces of water and I can’t convert that at all. Although people in the UK still refer to pints of milk, for water it tends to be litres. I definitely have to google conversions here although I think there are 8 pints in a gallon so get that a gallon is a lot of liquid! And 16 ounces to a pound but for liquid ounces - no idea!
16 fl oz to a pint. ("A pint is a pound the world around." So does that mean a pint of milks costs a pound? )
Sorry , but here in UK a pint is 20 fluid ounces "A pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter". So a UK gallon is a lot more than a US gallon! Another point to remember when people talk about drinking a certain amount of water a day.
That is a lot of water.0
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