The Metric System is one of the things you’ll start missing most after a transatlantic move. Distances are no longer distances, voluminas and weights are messed up, soccer-fields and hectares don’t mean anything to anybody in this world. Smartphones and little converter apps are the only things that give you some clue about what’s going on.
Now, over a year after my move over the ocean, I still catch myself responding to a “400ft on the left hand side” with a silent “whatever”, and trigger a recalculation-process to the system I’m familiar with. Seriously, given the fact that there is absolutely no easy way to master feet, miles, yards, acres, sq mi, ounces (volumina and weight in one measure, for Christ’s sake!), pounds, pints, cups, gallons, etc. I started asking myself, how did this country even get so far?
The one scale I started appreciating however, is Fahrenheit. In terms of human readability and usability, I think Fahrenheit is a great scale. First you need to know that people refer to temperature here with “it’s going to be in the 60ies”, meaning the temperature will be between 60F to 69F. 9 deegree variation seems a lot if you’re used to Celsius, but it’s not that big of a deal in Fahrenheit. I’ve learned that the term “in the 60ies” gives you very precise information about how to prepare for the temperature. Much more than I’ve ever learned to correctly read the Celsius scale. Let me illustrate this with my personal Fahrenheit scale, that I’ve sort of developed over the last year:
- everything < 50F: freezing, winter coat weather, below 40F thick winter coat
- 50ies: cold, don’t leave the house without jacket
- 60ies: chilly, you might want to bring a light jacket or some long sleeve shirt
- 70ies: nice warm, t-shirt, maybe shorts, I still prefer long trousers
- 80ies: hot, clearly shorts conditions
- > 90F: sweat, don’t forget your water bottle
See?
In Celsius the same information would be much more granular and not as easy to memorize. Usability of Fahrenheit is way superior to Celsius’. Despite the insanity of all the other scales, I really came to like Fahrenheit a lot here.