• intrepid@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Americans pick up weird habits and then insist that it’s the right way. How is August 9th any better than 9th of August when the 9th is a subunit of August and not the other way around?

      Another good example is the use of the imperial system. I’ve heard Americans often declare that it’s a better system for manual use compared to the metric system. But the metric system has prefixes that differ consistently by 3 orders of magnitude, whereas the imperial system has rather arbitrary jumps between each successive unit. The metric system needs much less cognitive effort even for manual use.

      I can understand that it’s a matter of habit for Americans. But it’s the lack of acceptance that there is a problem that leads to other problems like crashing a spacecraft onto Mars.

    • alessandro@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Generally speaking you’re usually from 0 to 720 hours in a month: how many time in a year you have to remind people what month they are into vs. the single day?

      Guy A: “Hey, what day is it?”

      Guy B: “It’s Sunday, the 13th.”

      Guy A: “Of…?” (gesturing to keep going)

      Guy B: “Ah, right, we’re just 390 hours into August. You may have missed that.”

        • thereisalamp@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          That’s what kills me about people who rag on Americans.

          We order our dates the way we say them, and we use a temperature system is a great way to describe feeling heat.

          I’ve got no defense for imperial measurements beyond scooping up a cup of flour is easier than dumping it on a scale.

          But people spend more energy shitting on the cultural norms of Americans than anyone else (especially Europeans) and then spend a lot of time telling us we have no culture.