Edumacated

[elfs]

This afternoon Omaha and I and the girls did our weekly grocery shopping. I went up to the deli and said, "I'd like eight ounces of sliced roast beef, please."

The girl behind the counter looked at me with a puzzled expression for a moment and then said, "How much is that? I'm not very good with ounces."

Comments

[kenshardik]

Did you know there are sixteen oozes in a lib?

[ambrose-m.livejournal.com]

Marching Morons (C. M. Kornbluth)

I expect it happens to everyone who lives long enough...

A.M.

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

Cross-post to mock_the_stupid?

[redhipple.livejournal.com]

Doesn't surprise me. Pounds, pints, and cups were covered in elementary school but not ounces. I rememebr having to look that up on my own around age 11 because my measuring cup was marked in ounces.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I am surprised that someone behind a deli counter can't do the basic mathematics. And this isn't a matter of the measuring cup, this is a basic principle of weight: even my kids know that there are 16 ounces in a pound. The whole feathers-versus-gold thing is old hat to them. But maybe that's just because I care.

[redhipple.livejournal.com]

But, my point is, how many people know there are sixteen ounces in a pound? I didn't until my preteen years. It was something I found out on my own. Could be this girl is just as ignorant as I was.

Or maybe she was just having a 'duh' moment.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[fallenpegasus]

The US "went metric" very soon after France invented the system.

Things like pounds, inches, and gallons are all actually legally defined in terms of grams, and centimeters. The controlling document is "NIST Special Publication 811", which you get get online from the NIST's website.

It's just that the controlling legal system will have a very hard time finding an effective way to *stop* people from using "English" units. All our stuff is already labelled in metric.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Things like pounds, inches, and gallons are all actually legally defined in terms of grams, and centimeters. The controlling document is "NIST Special Publication 811", which you get get online from the NIST's website.

There's a reason for that (which you, f.p., probably know, but others might not): the rank-n-file of NIST are physicists, chemists, and other scientists.

Metric is the system of units of science.

Actually, no, let me correct that: There is a system of units, used worldwide by all branches of science, called "SI" units. What we call "metric" is a subset of the SI units, and has, for some time now, been using a completely different set of definitions than the ones laid down in Paris 2 centuries ago...

...all but the kilogram, which is the only SI unit still defined in terms of an anthrocentric artifact. All of the other SI units are defined in terms of the fundamental SI units, which in turn are defined using physical properties.

(There are physicists whose careers are devoted to improving experiments to measure the natural phenomena that define a meter, a second, an ampere, ...)

[dougs.livejournal.com]

This would be entirely believable in Europe, where eight ounces is 227g, and you might be asking for 200g or 250g. In Britain, we're at that strange crossover point where the legislation insists we label in metric, but everyone my age does both and everyone older talks in Imperial.

[fallenpegasus]

She must be new.

When I go to the deli and do something like "2 oz roast beef, please", quite often the clerk will grab a handful, then drop a few pieces back, hold it for a moment, and then dump it on the scale, and it will be within 10% of the requested amount.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Well, Hell, if I go to B&E meats the butcher can easily nail any amount of meat to within an ounce. That because he's a butcher and has been doing this his whole life. A fundamental grasp of units of weight under one pound, though, is one thing I expect of most people, and I hope that's not asking too much.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Sadly it's not horribly surprising. I suspect I'm so good with measurements and conversions only because I do so much cooking and baking (and grew up learning how to convert European recipes as well as very old "handful of lard" type directions).