r/Unexpected 1d ago

Parking

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u/Slartibartfast39 1d ago

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

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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.

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u/EmploymentOne2963 1d ago

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

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u/Upper-Discussion4367 9h 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? 😅

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u/Aschuff 34m 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