this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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Imperial would be better if it actually was base 12. Instead, it's base 12, base 16, base 3, base 4, and whatever the fuck else. It's awful and you know it.
3 and 4 are divisions of twelve try again
next time you order donuts or bagels tell them you dont want a dozen because its twelve youd actually only want 10 nerd
Oh so there's 12 teaspoons to a tablespoon (3)? 12 tablespoons to a cup (16)? 12 feet to a yard (3)? 12 yards to a mile (1760)? Ok how about 12³ yards to a mile (12³=1728)? 12 ounces to a pound (16)? 12 cups to a pint (2)? 12 cups to a gallon (16)? 12 fluid ounces to a pint (20)?
The only actual conversion between any two units that is 12 in Imperial is feet to inches. teaspoon to ¼ cup doesn't count because that's a fraction of a unit (¼). It's 48 tsp to cup.
Don't get me wrong, I love the number 12 more than 10. But Imperial barely fucking uses it.
hold out your hand
see the knuckles on your finger? 3? good.
see the knuckles across your hand in a row? 4? good.
Count them all up. 12, right?
things are broken up into 3s, 4s, 6s, and 12s because they break up into 3rds, quarters, and halves like that easily and you can use your knuckles on one hand to count them and on another hand use your fingers to keep track of the multiples all the way up to 60 very easily
the imperial system is literally based on human anatomy for easy counting, division, and practical maths for simple tasks like low measurements youd use in baking, carpentry, and so on. you know, the stuff everyday working people do regularly. there is a reason this duodecimal system goes back to before roman times and transcends culture, even the chinese would count this way back in the day (and some still do)
adopt the system of the working person. use imperial
Holy fuck I already told you I like the number 12 more than 10.
What you're saying is great. But it would be cool if Imperial actually consistently used 12 instead of using it - and I can't stress this enough - once. Can you tell me how many feet are in a ¼ mile off the top of your head? If you can, most Americans can't. Most American don't even know that the number of feet in a full mile is 5280 for some fucking reason. That's not a power of 12. In fact in terms of multiples of 12 it's 12×440. What the fuck? That's not even like, 12×12×3 or something even remotely reasonable. There's a multiple of 11 in there. That's a fucking nightmare!
And with cooking it gets to the point where you're just bombarded with fractions and 3s and 4s and 8s and sixteenths and good god it's a mess. Stop kidding yourself. A measuring system with the consistency of metric but based on base 12 would truly be better than both systems, and imperial isn't even close.