Endora

LOL, about baby's weight! Yes, I remember, same here. We were taught the Metric way in school.

Trisher

Actually a masked man slit my belly open with a knife and fished her out! (just think about it )

She is fine!

M.Elizabeth

C-section was my experience as well, although only boys appeared!

Kitsie

Yes, me too. I have it bookmarked!

NatalieF

We use a mixture of both. For recipes, tsp, tbsp, cups, etc..., but I get confused with pints, quarts, etc... We'll say 250 ml, 500 ml or a litre. Gas in litres. Temp in celcius (I have a hard time converting to farenheit, thank God for online conversion calc.). Speed or driving distance are in Kilometers. Length are both...both centimers, meters, inches and yards. Weight is most often in pounds, but depending on what it is. Most of us calculate our weight in pounds, but you'd buy a kilo of sugar and a 10 pound bag of potatoes.

In other words, it's a total mish-mash of both!

Panchita

Ha, ain't that the truth! Although I think we're so used to it that the reality isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds...

We are *supposed* to be metric, but I gather the 'transition period' is lasting several decades (it started before I existed).

I'd say we're pretty firmly universal on 'miles' for roads in everyday use, but for smaller length measurements it is now tending more towards the metric (metres, centimetres, etc.). Schoolkids are taught in metric (and have been for some time), and shops are now required to sell things like fabric in metric and that is how prices are displayed, £10 per metre, for example (though you'll tend to find that if you have a middle-aged shop assistant they can be more fluent in the imperial measurements). Food prices are supposed to be in metric only now (used to be displayed in both, and you may sometimes come across this in the smaller shops but they aren't really supposed to do that now).

Recipes in British cookbooks as standard will give measurements in both metric and imperial as part of the recipe - as Charley26 says, you are simply taught to pick one 'standard' and use it throughout for that recipe (i.e. if you start off using imperial measurements then keep going with imperial for all of it - mix and match only if you wish culinary disaster!).

'Cups' is a recipe measurement I have only come across in North American cookbooks - here the imperial standard covers pounds and ounces (as well as teaspoons, etc.), but simply does not include 'cups' as a measurement at all. And the idea of there being a difference in liquid cups and dry weight cups can cause all sorts of pickles when converting if one does not realise it is a volume measurement rather than weight!

Overall I'd say that here there is a generational difference - those in their 50s & 60s plus will tend to use imperial more easily than metric, 30s to 40s probably use a mixture of both depending on what they are dealing with, 20s and younger are more comfortable with metric? I'm not really sure my age-brackets are entirely right (and there will always be exceptions), but you get the idea!

ShirlinAZ

Have you ever read your car's owner manual? The size of the gas tank will show metric, imperial gallons, and U.S. gallons! And what is a Troy ounce?

Sewnoma

I'm in the US and I'm fairly used to seeing metric for measures of liquid volume on items being sold. Most things are labeled with both measurements but some things (like wine and hard alcohol) are primarily (only?) in metric. I also used to make a lot of my own body products so I used milliliters a lot.

I'm somewhat conversant with metric distance measurements - my school district in elementary school was pushing metric hard, so I learned it young. I have a good feel for a millimeter, a centimeter, a decimeter, and a meter; but anything larger than that, I don't really have a feel for how large it is. I have a pretty good feel for how long a mile is, though.

Metric weights is probably the one I'm weakest one - I have no real good mental concept of how heavy a milligram, etc. is

bearisgray

A kilogram is 2.2 pounds.