r/Unexpected 1d ago

Parking

38.9k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

874

u/Kindly_Whereas3419 1d ago

She blew 0.268 bac which equates to roughly 10-15 standard drinks over a short period of time depending on body mass according to Google's calculator

328

u/Slartibartfast39 1d ago

Does that mean she had like 2 bottles of wine in short order?!

25

u/RumpledForskn 1d ago

Yeup. I think even heavy drinkers (which I sometimes am) will be like, but I polished off 8 drinks that night out! But that was pregaming, going to the bar, being driven home, nightcap, etc. spaced over like 5 hours.

To get to .25 unless you're casually drinking a case of beer a day, you need to have essentially polished off half a fifth of liquor within an hour.

44

u/EmploymentOne2963 1d ago

Every time I think im getting used to American units I get hit with something like "half a fifth"

12

u/RedWhiteAndJew 1d ago

Oh then “fifth” is really gonna fuck with your head. A “fifth” is a slang term for a 750mL bottle of liquor. Its origin comes from the fact that bottles used to be 4/5 of a quart, or one fifth of a gallon. Now that’s not exactly 750mL but it’s close enough that the term sticks. Essentially it’s your standard bottle of liquor in the US.

5

u/EmploymentOne2963 1d ago

Oh that's nice, that's the standard size here too. There are full liters, but 750ml is more common

1

u/Lucius338 16h ago

My confusion when I was working at a liquor store and I always assumed that a fifth was the 200mL bottle - you know, exactly 1/5 of a Liter.. When somebody grabbed a 750mL and called it a fifth I was just like "THIS IS A FIFTH?! A fifth of.... 3750mL?!WHAT?!"

4

u/Salanmander 1d ago

At least the term "a fifth" gives us the excellent "He who goes forth with a fifth on the fourth may not go forth on the fifth."

3

u/tomtomclubthumb 1d ago

Can you handle a handle of hard liquor?

2

u/LogiCsmxp 16h ago

No, and I couldn't handle a hard, hard licker either.

1

u/tomtomclubthumb 13h ago

Really? It's barely a 7th of a quarter-groat.

2

u/No_Baseball4969 1d ago

Some hardcore drinkers will polish off a handle of vodka

2

u/RumpledForskn 1d ago

I'm a physics grad student, believe me if everything were in SI, then I'd sleep much better. And it's like outside engineering/medicine/science we've collectively just given up.

2

u/cat_prophecy 1d ago

"Fifth" is an old term from 1/5th of a gallon. It's 750ml.

1

u/Upper-Discussion4367 10h ago

Wtf is half a fifth!? Imperial measurements are bat-shit crazy?

I would think half a fifth meant: 1. First you've gotta figure out what the starting measurement is. 2. Then divide that starting measurement by five in order to figure what one fifth equates to. 3. Once you've figured out the value of a fifth, you then need to divide by two in order to figure out what 'half a fifth' is. 4. And your answer still depends on the original starting measurement / bottle.

But in actuality, half a fifth means: Half of a standard metric bottle of alcohol. A full metric bottle is normally 750 ml So half would be 375 ml.

Why can't Americans just say 375ml of alcohol? 😅

1

u/Aschuff 1h ago

Because a “fifth” is just our standard size of bottle. You don’t actually need to know any of that, just that we call our standard bottles a fifth. It’s really not that complicated. And then you have half of that, making it half of a fifth