Canadians are in a unique place when it comes to measurement. Officially metric since 1975, we still have an abundance of imperial measurements creeping into our daily lives, no doubt because we live next door to the one of only three countries that still uses the old system ("Myanmar" or "Burma" and "Liberia" are the others).
Think about it. When we hear the weather forecast, the temperature is in Celsius and we seem to be good with that. In fact, trips to our southern neighbour can get a bit confusing when we hear that the high for the day is going to be 61 Fahrenheit. Should we bring a sweater or not? But, if we know that that's 16 C, the more cold temperature-sensitive among us might just want to bundle up a bit after all.
But what about cooking? It seem that a number of folks at least still use Fahrenheit when adjusting their oven temperature. Afterall, we all know what 400 F does when cooking a roast don't we? Would 204 C be just as familiar?
What about feet and inches? Us older folks still prefer to know our height in that way. Same when measuring the size of that new bookshelf or TV (we want a 65-inch flat screen, not a 165 centimetre one lol). Yet, on a larger scale, metric takes over.
In our travels, we use kilometres per hour (km/h) not miles per hour (MPH). A lot of modern cars will allow you to switch systems with the push of a button. That's a welcome piece of technology! 60 km/h is obviously a lot slower than 60 MPH, which, if you forget, will find you quickly learning all the latest swear words and hand gestures on America's superfast highways.
For weights, it seem to be half and half. We're okay buying 2.25 kilograms of sugar, and then adding a half a cup to our recipe. Buying milk by the litre is no problem and we'll pour ourselves an 8 ounce cup to go with our lunch. Meat and produce from the local grocery can still be tricky so a lot of them print both, although metric seems to have "won" at the deli counter.
There are other examples. Acres instead of hectares. With lumber, we're all familiar with 2 x 4's which are supposed to be inches even though they're really not. Or that 4 by 8 foot piece of plywood, which it actually is.
So the older folk who have learned the metric system later in life will probably stick with their hybrid measurement system for the rest of their days. The young folk who have been brought up in metric, will probably tip the balance more in favour of that system, being aware that that won't fly when they take that trip to the States.
Yet in spite of the odd nature of how we blend the two systems, it seems to work for us. THAT is Canadian resilience and adaptability,
Happy New Year!
