It's Superbowl Sunday. And this post has nothing to do with the Superbowl, even if I try to make up some tenuous link. Nope. Impossible, sorry.
This is a pondering about three disparate weights and measures between the US and the UK. We're all familiar with the main differences: fahrenheit versus centigrade; inches and feet versus centimeters and meters; pounds and ounces versus kilograms and grams; and yes, since I live in the US, I still have no clue about the majority of those metric measurements (and also, when it's 73 and sunny, it still sounds so much better than its alternative: 22.7 and sunny.)
In a country where more is definitely more, bigger is usually better, but of course, that doesn't translate to the size of a woman (except for breasts.) Smaller is definitely better when it comes to foot size, dress size and weight. Which is where things get a little confusing.
American clothing sizes bear absolutely no relation to common sense. I mean really: who invented size 0? How is that even possible? Scarily enough when I looked up size conversions I found that there is even something below size 0: double 0 (00). In the UK, the smallest dress size is a 4, which translates to 0. OK, so it makes us feel better. I'm a size 8 or 10 in the US, which sounds good, but in actuality is a 12 or a 14, which is probably more like the truth.
Here's the odd thing though. You'd think that this "downsizing" of numbers would also translate to feet, but it doesn't. In the US, I wear a size 8 shoe. In the UK, this translates to a 5. So, in the US it is entirely possible for your dress size to be smaller than your foot size, but in the UK, they are poles apart. Why is this? I could confuse things even further by talking about European shoe sizes, but that just gets way too complicated. I'm a 39 shoe in Europe. Go figure.
Finally there is weight. Interestingly, for a country which has gone metric in many other ways, the UK still measures weight in stones and pounds. In the US, it's just pounds. Again, you'd think that the US would go for the measurement that sounds, on the face of it, smaller. I mean if you weigh nine-and-a-half stone it sounds a lot less than 133 pounds. I gave up trying to do all those conversions in my head years ago. Dividing by 14 isn't easy, people.
So, back to the Superbowl. Just be glad you're watching players doing a series of 10-yard downs on a 100-yard field. It would be way too weird to have 9.144-meter downs on a 91.44 meter field.
See, I managed to get the Superbowl in here after all.
This is a pondering about three disparate weights and measures between the US and the UK. We're all familiar with the main differences: fahrenheit versus centigrade; inches and feet versus centimeters and meters; pounds and ounces versus kilograms and grams; and yes, since I live in the US, I still have no clue about the majority of those metric measurements (and also, when it's 73 and sunny, it still sounds so much better than its alternative: 22.7 and sunny.)
In a country where more is definitely more, bigger is usually better, but of course, that doesn't translate to the size of a woman (except for breasts.) Smaller is definitely better when it comes to foot size, dress size and weight. Which is where things get a little confusing.
American clothing sizes bear absolutely no relation to common sense. I mean really: who invented size 0? How is that even possible? Scarily enough when I looked up size conversions I found that there is even something below size 0: double 0 (00). In the UK, the smallest dress size is a 4, which translates to 0. OK, so it makes us feel better. I'm a size 8 or 10 in the US, which sounds good, but in actuality is a 12 or a 14, which is probably more like the truth.
Here's the odd thing though. You'd think that this "downsizing" of numbers would also translate to feet, but it doesn't. In the US, I wear a size 8 shoe. In the UK, this translates to a 5. So, in the US it is entirely possible for your dress size to be smaller than your foot size, but in the UK, they are poles apart. Why is this? I could confuse things even further by talking about European shoe sizes, but that just gets way too complicated. I'm a 39 shoe in Europe. Go figure.
Finally there is weight. Interestingly, for a country which has gone metric in many other ways, the UK still measures weight in stones and pounds. In the US, it's just pounds. Again, you'd think that the US would go for the measurement that sounds, on the face of it, smaller. I mean if you weigh nine-and-a-half stone it sounds a lot less than 133 pounds. I gave up trying to do all those conversions in my head years ago. Dividing by 14 isn't easy, people.
So, back to the Superbowl. Just be glad you're watching players doing a series of 10-yard downs on a 100-yard field. It would be way too weird to have 9.144-meter downs on a 91.44 meter field.
See, I managed to get the Superbowl in here after all.
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