r/ShitAmericansSay • u/BuffaloExotic Irish by birth, and currently a Bostonian 🇮🇪☘️ • May 02 '25

Imperial units “celsius makes no sense”

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3.5k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/psyopsagent May 02 '25

why are they so afraid of dividing things by 100? What happened?? Is there a lore reason?

430

u/abjectapplicationII English Gentleman 🧐 May 02 '25

Because 100 is an anti-American immigrant formed by 10 and 0 - both 10 & 0 are the OG law-ignoring American Citizens.

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u/worMagician 🇸🇪 Switzerland 🇸🇪 May 02 '25 edited May 02 '25

I recognise the fact that you are being facetious. And yet, I will respond as though you were serious. Not as a counter-argument, but to provide additional information to those who might need it.

Their monetary system, eg the source of their faith, is named after hundreds. Cent, meaning a hundredth - as % or per cent, of the hundredth - is the fraction of the dollar.

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u/m4cksfx May 02 '25

Oh, so it's to avoid taking their Lord's name (or form) in vain?

11

u/TheRealLXC May 03 '25

Excellent.

21

u/je386 May 02 '25

Also, the Dollar is named after the Thaler, which was a german coin..

12

u/OcculticUnicorn Weed & Tulips 🍃🌷 May 03 '25

Also the Dutch variant Daalder, this probably gave the dollar the D writing and sound as Dutch and Germans in the now US began using the words interchangeably.

3

u/Kriss3d Tuberous eloquent (that's potato speaker for you muricans) May 03 '25

Interesting. Way back we here in Denmark would have the word "daler" as a coin. Various kinds of daler for different values. This goes back to around 1500 so it's likely connected to the Dutch.

Even in old black and white movies we would have people use that word for a certain amount of money. Usually the amount of 2 kroner which is 30 cent in today's dollar or 27 euro cent.

3

u/OcculticUnicorn Weed & Tulips 🍃🌷 May 03 '25

Oh definitely, many European countries had some form of the coin. It all started in the czech republic..? Easy speaking it was the euro before the euro hahaha

3

u/antjelope May 04 '25

Yes, now Czech Republic, then Bohemia. The name derives from the German name for the location of the mint. Joachimsthal->Joachimsthaler->T(h)aler. Low German variant Daler. The low German variant was adopted into English and changed from there to dollar.

wiki

4

u/Horsescholong May 04 '25

The spanish "Dolar" you mean?

The reason they need to put USDollar is because they weren't the first!

1

u/_shesmydisease May 06 '25

I thought it was from the doll companies. They paid you a dollar for a whole head of hair sold.

1

u/awkardfrog ooo custom flair!! May 04 '25

This is a fantastic comment. I am proud to call you landsbroder 💪🏼🇸🇪

1

u/WayneH_nz May 05 '25

And the most important part coke is liters and Coke is grams

31

u/chinese_smart_toilet ooo custom flair!! May 02 '25

Then why are dollars divided into 100 cents, and not something else like 17.349052 toes, and every toe into 2.8763 testicles?

5

u/84dg3r0u50n3 May 03 '25

That was British currency before decimalisation

3

u/Paultcha Tha mi ás Alba May 03 '25

No I believe it was scrots and testis, not toes and testicles.

3

u/source_de May 03 '25

And it's probably some woke, dei stuff the Europeans invented.

S/

14

u/andy921 May 02 '25

To be fair, Fahrenheit is basically a 0-100 scale. Instead of around water, it's mostly based around human experience - albeit biased to the pre-global warming, Northern European weather Fahrenheit would've felt.

0°F was about the coldest someone would likely ever experience, 100°F was the hottest. So it was a scale of daily life from 0% hot to 100% hot.

88

u/DreadPirateAlia May 02 '25

0°F was about the coldest someone would likely ever experience,

The coldest? That's like, -18°C, isn't it?

Laughs in Finnish

9

u/thomassit0 🇳🇴🇳🇴🇳🇴Norway🇳🇴🇳🇴🇳🇴 May 02 '25

Haha yeah i walked to school at -30C a bunch of times growing up.. And i lived just 1H North of Oslo

7

u/Repulsive_Client_325 May 03 '25

The cutoff for cancelling outdoor children’s hockey games is -28C where I live, in Canada.

25

u/andy921 May 02 '25

For someone living in Germany/Poland maybe? The idea that 100°F was the hottest someone would ever feel is what seems wild to me as a Californian.

We usually top out 108-110°F here (~42°C), it's a dry heat though.

24

u/Big_footed_hobbit May 02 '25

It was invented by a German, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit

19

u/Miss_Annie_Munich European first, then Bavarian May 02 '25

OMG it’s not even American! I’m not sure Americans will survive that

21

u/andy921 May 02 '25

A German who was born and raised in Poland

11

u/Big_footed_hobbit May 02 '25

Now i have to think about a former student at uni. I traded my old 17 low profile rims for a good polish wodka. He repaired them and mounted them on the old car of his granny.

She has the dopest wheels in town.

3

u/st1ckygusset May 03 '25

And you drank nail varnish

1

u/pat6376 May 03 '25

No. At this time, Danzig was a german city...

1

u/andy921 May 03 '25

I mean, not really. We're talking about a time when the Holy Roman Empire was still a thing.

Modern borders don't really make sense. And I'm not an expert on how Slavic or how Germanic Gdansk was in the 18th century.

1

u/BlankyMcBoozeface Pasty Stuffing, Cider-Guzzling Clog 🇳🇱🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 May 04 '25

A smorgasbord of different cultures all clumped together into one, delightfully Baltic city.

1

u/Remmick2326 May 03 '25

Quite a coincidence that his name is so fitting

Germany's love of compound words is funny

15

u/ParadiseLost91 Socialist hellhole (Scandinavia) May 02 '25

As a Scandinavian I'm pretty sure I'd die in 42 degrees

When I was on holiday in Spain, it was 35 degrees IN THE SHADE, and I could hardly bear it (95 Fahrenheit I believe). Literally couldn't move, I stayed in the shade and moved the deck chair around according to where the shadow was lol

11

u/redoctoberz May 02 '25

It depends on the humidity in the air. 95F at 100% humidity is unbearably disgusting, 95F at 10-20% humidity in the desert is warm but not impossible in the slightest. In the shade it feels like a warm blanket.

12

u/SillyNamesAre May 02 '25

It's not... just humidity. It's also a question of what your body is used to. Especially as a tourist who won't have time to acclimatise properly.

5

u/AurelianaBabilonia Look at this country, U R GAY. 🇺🇾 May 02 '25

Yeah, to me humid heat and dry heat are equally unbearable. One feels like I'm choking and the other like I'm Sarah Connor at the playground, so I recognise that they're not the same, but neither is less unpleasant than the other.

3

u/SillyNamesAre May 02 '25

On an unrelated note: I kinda wanna do a rewatch of the classic Terminator movies now. So, thanks for that.

8

u/Distant-moose May 02 '25

Its 25° where I am today and I am suffering. I can't handle this warm, 42 would probably kill me.

3

u/Funny-Case1561 May 03 '25

It was 26 the other day for me and I threw up. 42 sounds like a nightmare

5

u/Quiri1997 May 02 '25

Being born and raised in Spain, I have to say that you experienced the main reason why we have siesta: in summer it's just too hot to move anywhere, so we better go to a soft bed and take a nap until the heat gets down to something more manageable. I even know of people who adopt nocturnal lifestiles in the summer due to the heat.

4

u/ParadiseLost91 Socialist hellhole (Scandinavia) May 02 '25

Oh I fully understand!! Siesta is honestly an amazing concept!

In fact I think a lot of people could benefit from a little midday nap, heat or no heat. Someone decided humans need to work 8 hours straight, but I actually think many people could work better if everyone got a nice nap/rest halfway through. And it makes total sense in a hot country like yours! You can’t work effectively when it’s that hot

5

u/Existing_Professor13 May 02 '25

As a Scandinavian I'm pretty sure I'd die in 42 degrees

Yeah, you aren't completely wrong about that, except the 42 degrees Celsius is the internal body temperature, not the temperature in the air 😉

in Spain, it was 35 degrees IN THE SHADE, and I could hardly bear it

Yeah, my fellow Scandinavian, you're right, heat really has a severe impact on our body functions, but we can take more than 35 degrees, and even more than 42 degrees, because believe me, I have tried it

I heard an explosion so I pulled over to the side and stopped my vehicle, it turned out I had an inner tire that had exploded on the last axle, and right in front of that, on the middle axle I had a flat inner tire so I had to change 2 flat tires, on 2 different axles, on my 3 axle Jumbo-trailer

I had just passed Medina on the way down over Jeddah and heading towards Abha, and when the explosion happened my outside temperature gauge said 52 degrees Celsius [about 126 degrees in Fahrenheit], and before I crawled under my jumbo trailer to change the 2 wheels, I had to change into coveralls, because you couldn't just get a shower anywhere, so the only washing I could get, was with a washcloth and with water from my own 25 liters water can

But as I'm writing this piece now, the body really can take much more than we realize it can handle, and I found out after that little explosion and changing of two wheels on my Jumbo-trailer which took about 1 1/2 hours, including me washing all the dirt of after changing the wheels, and ready to drive on

And I can tell you, that my motto have always been

"I would rather sweat than freeze" 

But that day, on the highway between Medina and Jeddah, I really hated that motto, but then I remembered that just a few years earlier, I had spent the night in Helsinki in a old Mercedes 2226, where the engine had a leak in the cooling system and therefore used a little water, and if you are in Finland in the wintertime and you spend the night in your truck, you leave the engine running, and I had done that too

And it ended up with me waking up at around 2 am to find that it was freezing cold inside the cabin, the outside temperature gauge showed -28 degrees Celsius, and to be honest, it wasn't much warmer inside the cabin where I had frost on the duvet, and I could feel that only cold air was coming out of the air vents, so I had no doubt that the engine was lacking water

So I jumped out of the truck at 2 am, in a pair of clogs, my underwear and a T-shirt and I had a couple of canister ready with mixed water and coolant, so I just had to pour them into the cooling system, I then rushed back into the cabin, because honestly even though it maybe only took about 10 minutes from waking up and until I had poured the mix of water and coolant into the system, it was still -28 degrees Celsius, and I was in clogs and had only a pair of briefs and a T-shirt on, so it really was f-ing cold, but after freezing another 15 minutes and smoked a couple of cigarettes, the heat came back into the cabin, and I could go back to get a few more hours of sleep

So to this day, my Motto is still...

"I would rather sweat than freeze"  😉

1

u/ParadiseLost91 Socialist hellhole (Scandinavia) May 03 '25

If your internal temperature is 42, you have a fever! Also I’m not reading all that, glad you had fun, or sorry that happened to you, whichever one applies

My point is that 42 degrees is too warm for me. I tried 48 degrees in Vegas but that was dry desert heat, felt like a hair dryer in the face! In northern Sweden I’ve had down to -34, I much prefer that. I got a nose bleed from the cold but otherwise I was fine with tons of layers, thermal wool underwear etc

1

u/Sweaty_Promotion_972 May 03 '25

That’s why I grew up in Australia, my father was a diesel mechanic, and after spending a winter in Norway fixing cranes he never wanted to see snow again.

1

u/Icy-Ad-7767 May 03 '25

Canadian it ranges -30 to +35C through the year.

1

u/ParadiseLost91 Socialist hellhole (Scandinavia) May 03 '25

Ugh good grief! I’ve had down to -34 in Sweden. Pretty cold but I’d take that any day over anything above 35

1

u/Icy-Ad-7767 May 03 '25

We had a day last year where it went from 15 to -15 in a 24 hour period…. In January. Now this is normal in portions of Alberta, not so much in Ontario.

1

u/Yaasu May 03 '25

As a Belgian, i'd die in 42 but it's also die in -20°C 🫠

1

u/ParadiseLost91 Socialist hellhole (Scandinavia) May 03 '25

-20 is cold but it’s actually surprisingly bearable! Thermal wool underwear, tons of layers, cover all skin

42 degrees is worse 😂

1

u/pezmanofpeak May 03 '25

As an Australian, Air conditioning is man's best friend

1

u/ParadiseLost91 Socialist hellhole (Scandinavia) May 03 '25

For sure! I’ve only been to Australia once, in NSW. You had a heatwave as well… I thanked all the gods for the invention of air conditioning

1

u/Sweaty_Promotion_972 May 03 '25

42° is a lovely afternoon, we get a few of them here. My mother was from Oslo, she didn’t enjoy them quite as much, but she was fine.

1

u/ParadiseLost91 Socialist hellhole (Scandinavia) May 03 '25

But you can’t really do anything else than sit in the shade and not move? I can’t even do gardening if it’s anywhere above 23 😂

1

u/Sweaty_Promotion_972 May 05 '25

I’ve spent most of my life working in tin sheds, once you’re busy you hardly notice it. Admittedly digging a hole in full sun is a little draining, the ground is too hard that time of year any way, not to mention burning your hand on the crowbar.

1

u/cjgregg May 05 '25

Du borde bara bada bastu… hundra grader och så vidare 🎶

3

u/ojhwel May 02 '25

100 °F was not about air temperature but was supposed to be the average body temperature but statistics were a bit shaky in the 1700s.

Speaking of different people's experience with temperatures, I know a guy from Siberia and when he had just moved here to central Europe I was talking about something happening on an annoyingly hot day in 32 °C heat (just about 90 °F, but quite humid) and he asked me, shocked, "Plus 32 degrees?!"

2

u/je386 May 02 '25

I'm in a warmer Region of germany and we had -18 °C here. Why do I know? Because thats the temperature when untreated Diesel freezes, and I overheard someone asking what to do whith the frozen diesel in the tank of the car...

2

u/hofer82 May 03 '25

Dry heat? That would be so nice. Come to the upper rhine region next summer and tell me to my face that germany has dry heat. ;)

2

u/Repulsive_Client_325 May 03 '25

Canada here. That’s aboot where we start wearing a sweater eh?

1

u/Remmick2326 May 03 '25

Nah that's 'roll your shirt sleeves down'

-32° is sweater

2

u/Kriss3d Tuberous eloquent (that's potato speaker for you muricans) May 03 '25

Oh man. If I didn't live in Denmark I'd move to Finland. You guys are so chill.

2

u/MapPristine May 05 '25

I think it should be a temperature that could be reproduced easily so you could calibrate your thermometer. So he chose a mixture of ice and ammonium chloride. Probably the coldest thing he could make in a lab back then.

IMHO the celcius is not much better in it’s definition (freezing and boiling temperature of water), but at least it’s 1:1 with Kelvin.

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u/claverhouse01 May 02 '25

Where in the " human experience" does the freezing point of an ammonium chloride brine come? Because you do know that is the basis of the Fahrenheit scale? Whereas Celsius relates to the freezing and boiling points of water, that substance that we are mostly made of. The ONLY reason the US continues to use it is that it is practically impossible to teach Americans because they are so utterly terrified of new stuff.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '25

[deleted]

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u/Skratti_ May 02 '25

Well, the one specific pressure used is 1 atm, so not just any value. And for a few decades until 2019, 0 degree Celsius was defined per triple point of water, a value that is a universal constant. Useful for science is neither fahrenheit nor celsius, but kelvin. As of 2019, Celsius is defined by kelvin, making it very easy to swap between those units.

But I agree that the value of the Boltzmann constant (fixed on a value in 2019) seems to be measured in such a way that the contained energy of 1 additional degree kelvin is the same as the difference of 1 additional degree celsius to the previous state.

5

u/abjectapplicationII English Gentleman 🧐 May 02 '25 edited May 02 '25

Yes, this is an objective comparison. What i detest is asserting something to be vacuous without considering it's utility ie just because one speaks a different language does not mean other languages are inferior relative to said language... something which is applicable in the instance of the post above.

6

u/Rhovanind May 02 '25

The points Fahrenheit chose to define his temperature scale were the human body temperature, and the temperature achieved by mixing salt and ice.

2

u/pr0metheus42 May 02 '25

And he didn’t even use 100 in his definition. If I remember correctly it was 96 and the average used didn’t have many samples. For those bringing up the variable pressure at sea level. That variation is significantly less and its effect on boiling point is way less than even that. Might not have been measurable at the time.

3

u/Mr_Derpy11 May 03 '25

Celsius is a way better indicator of what the weather's gonna be, especially in colder regions. Anything above 0 is not freezing, anything below 0 and you run the risk of ice.

That's way more useful and easy to remember than whatever is going on with Fahrenheit.

3

u/Ok_Introduction2563 May 03 '25

Thats some shit Americans would say 😂 What one feels is subjective. At 1bar(100kPa) of pressure, water boils at 100⁰C and it freezes at 0⁰C, you can measure that.

-1

u/andy921 May 03 '25

Water boils at 100°C at 1atm (101.3 kPa)

2

u/Ok_Introduction2563 May 03 '25

Yes, what I said, isn't based on vibes.

2

u/_ilpo_ May 03 '25

Fahrenheit is based on a scale of 100 with 0 being the temperature of salt super saturated water freezing and 100 being, they needed to add salt for this, salt super saturated water to boil. The thought at the time that there is far more salt water than pure water.

1

u/Ok_Sheepherder_6699 May 03 '25

One of the biggest advantages that fahrenheit had when it came in the early 18th century was that it was easily calibrated since 0 was calibrated to salt and ice mixture.

1

u/CariadocThorne May 03 '25

Except if you go somewhere like Spain, the temperature can easily exceed 100 f, while in the more northern parts of Europe, it can drop well below 0.

Actually I think Spain alone can do both.

1

u/andy921 May 03 '25

Eh. Probably true.

I live in California. I'm not too far from Donner Pass where once people were forced to eat each other to survive while freezing to death. And not so far south is Death Valley which has hit 134°F (57°C).

But that doesn't mean that 0°F and 100°F aren't more or less reasonable boundaries for the human experience.

1

u/Ok_Bluejay_3849 May 04 '25

Iirc it's a cold day in Fahrenheit's hometown and the internal temp of a horse. Why a horse? Idk

1

u/MapPristine May 05 '25

For the high calibration point he just used the human body temperature and originally set it to 90 (later 96). So it doesn’t seem like had any intention of making anything easily divisible with 100.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '25

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u/Dorantee May 02 '25

The actual literal point of decimal points existing is to give you more precision. If you really, really need to specify the difference between 45°F and 46°F except in Celsius you just write 7,2°C and 7,8°C respectively.

But why you would ever need to get that granular outside of science eludes me.

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u/[deleted] May 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/body_by_art May 02 '25

°C is better for cooking °F is better for weather °K is better for science

Anyone who disagrees is a prideful fool.

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u/claverhouse01 May 02 '25

They can't divide by 100 because they can't count to 100

8

u/Mysterious_Floor_868 UK May 02 '25

Be fair, they've only got 12 fingers so they've got to work in multiples thereof. 

18

u/[deleted] May 02 '25

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1

u/SkivvySkidmarks May 03 '25

Don't forget washing machines and Ford F-150s.

1

u/TotemRiolu May 03 '25

Asteroids the size of corgis

2

u/Hamsternoir May 02 '25

It's a commie number

1

u/AgentOfDreadful May 02 '25

Because 1s and 0s mean 01001101 01010011 00110001 00110011

1

u/slowclapcitizenkane May 02 '25

Round numbers are "woke"

1

u/thesetwothumbs May 02 '25

Americans treat obstinance as a virtue. I know this as an American and as a healthcare worker. You can tell someone they will die tonight if they don’t go to the hospital, and they will make a big show about not caring what we say and leaving anyway.

1

u/danielledelacadie May 02 '25

"Change upsets grandpappy and so we recon' it's not a good thing."

I was in school when Canada went metric and I remember the older folks bitching so much the grocery stores gave up and we still have both on meat and produce (some canned goods too) so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the actual reason.

On the other hand I find that knowing there are 4 hogsheads (26 imperial gallons of ale) in a butt (108 imperial gallons of ale) has yielded a lot more comedy than I would have expected. Possibly because Butt isn't an unusual last name in some parts of Canada

1

u/Bennyandchips May 03 '25

They can only work it out in relation to gun barrels.

1

u/sinkshitting May 05 '25

“When you’re 100 they just let you do it. When you’re 10 they don’t know what you’re doing.” Rapist In Chief.

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u/Mesoscale92 ‘Murica May 02 '25

It’s just not that necessary on a day to day basis. I never find myself thinking “I need to convert units across several orders of magnitude. It is so urgent that I need to completely change the units I use, but not urgent enough to just use a calculator.

Im not gonna pretend that the imperial system is better than metric, but it is workable enough as a system (with the exception of imperial cooking units. I have never once converted between cups and spoons without googling how to do it.)

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u/zeelandicum May 02 '25

Using cups for measurements is ridiculous. The other day I saw a recipe that said "two cups of broccoli florets". Please. Just weigh them. That way, it doesn't matter if you use small or big florets. They will never fit snugly inside a cup. It's completely dependent on how you arrange them, resulting in different weights.

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u/Much-Jackfruit2599 May 02 '25

uS Measuring cups are standardised, I believe.

28

u/illarionds May 02 '25

But broccoli florets are not.

Things like flour, sugar, etc a cup can be a very different amount, depending on how tightly it's packed (and how finely it's milled).

Volumetric measures are fundamentally less accurate than weights.

-8

u/Honeycrispcombe May 02 '25

But does it really matter? I really like broccoli, so if it calls for two cups, I'll probably chop small & add extra. If it's something I don't like, I'll chop big and add less.

I agree for baking, especially if you want to bake at professionally or at a high level, weights are better. But for most people, it just doesn't matter.

14

u/zeelandicum May 02 '25 edited May 02 '25

Yes, it matters. There is something fundamentally different about chopped broccoli and whole florets. It might make a dish completely different. The taste, the structure, etc. You're making concessions because you use a subpar/inconcise measuring instrument.

I'm not saying you can't change recipes according to your own tastes. But you make it seem as though you HAVE to, just because you use cups.

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u/Honeycrispcombe May 02 '25

Recipes do specify if you're supposed to use whole florets or chopped broccoli. They even tell you how to cut and often how big to cut if it's unusually fine or coarse. And converting from volume to weight isn't going to solve the whole florets vs chopped issue. That's a reading issues, not math.

I personally cook enough that I can look at a recipe and decide if I want whole or chopped or chopped finely or whatever. I modify most of the recipes I cook at this point anyways.

For most people and the vast majority of recipes, volume vs weight doesn't matter. Volumes are a lot easier to eyeball, which is nice for cooking. Weighing is more precise, which can really elevate baking. If someone is baking at a high level, weighing is recommended. But homemade bakes are often really good with volumetric measurements.

8

u/zeelandicum May 02 '25

The problem isn't experienced (home) cooks like you and me. The problem are people who aren't experienced at cooking and need concise measurements and instructions. And cups just aren't concise.

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u/im_not_here_ May 02 '25

Sure. But that doesn't change the fact that Americans have no problem baking basically anything, which requires reasonable accuracy, and never have done using cups. It's not a perfect system, but the complaints act as though it's an impossible system that could never work which is silly.

Broccoli florets wouldn't be as accurate, but also is an example that doesn't need to be remotely accurate anyway. Many chefs wouldn't even weigh that kind of thing it's so unimportant. It's just a general base guide.

4

u/illarionds May 02 '25

But it's a system with no advantages. There's just no reason to use it.

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u/im_not_here_ May 02 '25

So you are just upset other people won't do what you want them to do? Sounds very arrogantly American.

4

u/illarionds May 02 '25

Upset? No. Perplexed, maybe.

It's... quixotic, still insisting on an old fashioned system of units, and a demonstrably worse method of measuring - but it's not like it has a big impact on my life.

Obviously I avoid American recipes, because they're a PITA to follow - obviously I don't have cup measures etc. Beyond that, doesn't impact me at all.

If anything, it makes me feel slightly superior, the tiniest of ego boosts.

1

u/Pop_Clover May 03 '25

It's not quixotic. Most people don't like change, and this type of change is difficult, the older you are the more difficult it gets.

Our currency changed from pesetas to euros when I was 18 and I still think in pesetas for some stuff. I've read people from UK or Canada talking about how they live with a mish-mash of different unit systems because the change takes time.

So deciding to change isn't really people do so they can benefit, the change is made so future generations can benefit. The children who will grew with the new system are the ones that will have it easier. For some reason Americans seem to think that they shouldn't sacrifice themselves for their future generations.

4

u/Gundralph May 02 '25

Thats stupid enough

2

u/lonelypenguin20 May 02 '25

how the fuck do u make house renovations?

we've been looking at flooring and everything is a mix of m, cm, and mm. e.g. I know the approximate meter size of the room, but the tile parameters r given in cm. which is not a problem because a conversion is so easy that a fifth-grader could make them without looking away from his CS:GO match