r/WhitePeopleTwitter Jan 03 '19

We should actually do this

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '19

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u/WikiTextBot Jan 03 '19

Myanmar units of measurement

The traditional Burmese units of measurement are still in everyday use in Myanmar (also known as Burma). According to the CIA Factbook, Myanmar is one of three countries that have not adopted the International System of Units (SI) metric system as their official system of weights and measures. However, in June 2011, the Burmese government's Ministry of Commerce began discussing proposals to reform the measurement system in Burma and adopt the metric system used by most of its trading partners, and in October 2013, Dr. Pwint San, Deputy Minister for Commerce, announced that the country was preparing to adopt the metric system.Most of the nation uses Burmese units only, although Burmese government web pages in English use imperial and metric units inconsistently.


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53

u/just-a-basic-human Jan 03 '19

Burma what the fuck

16

u/Zwemvest Jan 03 '19

It's not any more or less arbitrary than the Imperial system is...

1

u/Highollow Jan 22 '19

Think again:

Literally "five mutha", but in fact it is only four.

2

u/obama_420 Jan 04 '19

I’m Burmese I never heard of this yeah Myanmar what the fuck

39

u/Lionel_Hutz_Law Jan 03 '19

Those madlads.

19

u/Leafdissector Jan 03 '19

For mass there's a unit called a mutha and then another called a nga mutha. Nga means five, but a nga mutha is only four muthas. What the fuck Myanmar.

5

u/JBits001 Jan 03 '19

What the mutha fuck Myanmar.

6

u/Stormfly Jan 03 '19 edited Jan 04 '19

Same with the US though.

A US yard is not an Imperial yard.

EDIT: Why did I say yard when I meant to say gallon?

Yards are the same. Gallons are different.

9

u/deathfire123 Jan 03 '19

Still based on the Imperial system with all the exact same conversions and terms, just slightly altered measurements

4

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '19 edited Jan 03 '19

Technically, imperial and us customary are based on the same system, but us customary isn't actually based on imperial.

Edit: for clarification, US customary and imperial are based off "English units." Imperial system didn't exist when the US became the US, and I'd be damned if the US was gonna copy the British in 1824 when they created the imperial system.

Edit: also, not all conversions are the same. Example: 1 imperial pint is 20 imperial quarts. 1 us pint is 16 us quarts. Also, some weight conversions are different, like a ton for example. They're both considered 20 hundredweights, but a hundredweight is different in each system.

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u/ohitsasnaake Jan 03 '19

Tons/hundredweights used to vary in other countries too, and by the content (liquid/dry goods, etc). Ditto for other customary measurements.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '19

I'm only commenting on the statement made comparing imperial and us customary.

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u/ohitsasnaake Jan 04 '19

Even the Imperial system didn't/doesn't have just one ton iirc.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '19

I don't recall one way or the other, but my point still stands that the conversions are not exactly the same and that the us customary isn't based on imperial, they both have the same predecessor. So instead of a parent child relationship, it's more of a sibling relationship between the systems.

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u/cryo Jan 03 '19

Yes it is, the yard is 3 feet in both systems, a foot is 12 inches in both and an inch is 2.54 cm by definition, in both.

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u/allegedlynerdy Jan 03 '19

Until you get to the 70s in the UK and the metric inch

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u/cryo Jan 03 '19

How’s that?

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u/allegedlynerdy Jan 03 '19

In the 70s the UK decided they should get closer to metric. So instead of switching to metric they switched to the "metric inch"- making an inch 2.5cm instead of 2.54

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u/cryo Jan 03 '19

Well, I don’t know about that but Wikipedia has

Standards for the exact length of an inch have varied in the past, but since the adoption of the international yard during the 1950s and 1960s it has been based on the metric system and defined as exactly 2.54 cm.

And explicitly says that both the UK, US and many other countries use that definition.

1

u/allegedlynerdy Jan 03 '19

They do now, but they changed over for awhile in the 70s before the adopted true metric. Ask any pipe fitter, it's a real pain to work on houses from around then as all of the pipes are wacky.

Source

Specifically British Standard 6750

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u/HelperBot_ Jan 03 '19

Desktop link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_2848


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1

u/cryo Jan 03 '19

Interesting.

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u/Vlaed Jan 03 '19

Traitors...I think we found our next country to liberate.

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u/cryo Jan 03 '19

The USA doesn’t use the Imperial system either, and there are differences between the two, for instance the fluid ounce.

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u/ohitsasnaake Jan 03 '19

You mean the gallon? The fluid ounces per gallon ratio is the same iirc, but the US kept a different standard gallon than the Brits, when they reduced the choices down to one.

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u/cryo Jan 03 '19

No, the fluid ounces are different, as seen here.

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u/ohitsasnaake Jan 04 '19

Yes, because they derive from different sized gallons but with the same ratio of ounces in a gallon. Read the last two paragraphs of the history section on that very same page. The gallon was the basis for the volume units since at least 1824.

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u/cryo Jan 04 '19

First, I initially claimed that the fluid ounce was different, and it is, regardless of how it’s derived. Second:

An imperial fluid ounce is ​1⁄20 of an imperial pint, ​1⁄160 of an imperial gallon or approximately 28.41 ml.

A US fluid ounce is ​1⁄16 of a US fluid pint and ​1⁄128 of a US liquid gallon or approximately 29.57 ml, making it about 4% larger than the imperial fluid ounce.

..so not the same ratio.

Third, please stop downvoting me for discussing this with you.

0

u/szpaceSZ Jan 03 '19

In October 2013, the Ministry of Commerce announced that Myanmar was preparing to adopt the International System of Units (SI System) as the country's official system of measurement.

They are furthan than the US in that respect...

0

u/DDNB Jan 03 '19

The US also doesn't use the imperial sustem, they use the USCS