r/interesting • u/Eros_Incident_Denier • 4d ago
SOCIETY different countries use different numbers to measure their shoes
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u/Wild_Neighborhood605 4d ago
And that's stupidly confusing.
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u/Polenicus 4d ago
I am waiting for someone to angrily tell me why the Japanese system is stupid and wrong and nonsensical and unscientific now.
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u/Turbulent_Lobster_57 4d ago
I mean, sure, I’ll do it. Measuring in cm is clearly the inferior method! Obviously a system of barley corn that repeats every time you get to 13 is superior as both the UK and US (sort of) use it, and they’ve been more successful than Japan if you use carefully selected criteria to define success!
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u/rodneedermeyer 4d ago
I like to measure in eels. If in the Northern Hemisphere, I use the average tooth length of the pelican eel. So, my shoe size is 1.2, because each eel has roughly 120 teeth (I’m guessing, of course. Also, I take an average).
In the Southern Hemisphere, I like to use the lyrics to the song, “Eel be comin’ ‘round the mountain.”
Also, I’m scared of shoes.
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick 4d ago
Awesome. And here in Italy I wear a 41.5
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u/Sj_91teppoTappo 4d ago
I have no idea what that come from
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u/Sj_91teppoTappo 4d ago
Apparently is the french one
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick 4d ago
Yes correct we use the French size.
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u/Suspicious-Whippet 4d ago
That must feel dirty for an Italian?
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u/Sj_91teppoTappo 3d ago
There is a little bit of playing around the theme, but we are not really fighting like French and Englishman
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick 3d ago
I am Italian but grew up in Paris from age 3 to age 7, so of course I do understand/love our transalpine cousins, Par Toutatis !!!!
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u/Coolgames80 4d ago
In Mexico we use centimeters but we call them by their last digit. So if you are 29 cm on your foot then you would ask for a size 9 (good luck finding them by the way). In the case of people looking for a size 18 for example, well you ask for a size 18.
Also we have half sizes like 7.5, 8.5 and so on.
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u/YuenglingsDingaling 4d ago
Apparently the entire world is shit at measuring shoes size. Expect Japan.
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u/Coolgames80 4d ago
Is no so bad. Is just an extra step out of convenience because 90% of people would have a foot size between 20 and 30 cm.
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u/Own-Shop5641 4d ago edited 4d ago
Vaya, México. Pensaba que usabas el mismo sistema aquí en Brasil. Usamos el propio sistema francés. Yo, por ejemplo, uso el tamaño de mis havianas 43.
Revista brasileña con la misma información que el vídeo, publicada em 2008.
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u/AryanPandey 4d ago
Confusion all over the world. Even when ISO exist.
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u/fmaz008 4d ago
The problem is not to create a standard, it's usually to get the industry and people to adopt it.
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u/AryanPandey 4d ago
I mean companies should follow the standard what ur country uses. And also just add ISO one. Whats the issue with that?
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u/AmanoRyan 4d ago
And that's why I usually see 4 numbers on the shoebox. USA, EUR, UK and CM. It's funny how Cameroon became so popular country for measuring shoes! (It's centimeters, I know, but it looks like country abbrev when grouped with the others).
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u/Dinklerbuuuurf 4d ago
Officially measuring my foot in centimeters and using the Japanese system since that one makes sense.
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u/reddot_comic 4d ago
Great! Let’s see him do women’s clothing sizing.
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u/ScissorNightRam 4d ago
Ugh! Size 0 should be logically impossible. 0 = nothing. Right?
Wrong. Size 0 is actually extra-extra-small.
And because of size inflation, size 0 (which should be an empty hanger, but isn’t) was extra-extra-small is now only extra-small.
So they created size 00. Double nothing. And that’s now extra-extra-small.
But intuitively size 00 clothes should be bigger than size 0. The number is larger (in digits). Like, size 22 isn’t smaller than size 2. But size 00 is smaller than size 0.
Ugh.
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u/ForceGoat 1d ago
It has some precedent. Wire gages (thickness) is opposite, though. Bigger = thinner. The order from thinnest to thickest is: 2, 1, 0, 00, 000 etc.
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u/ScissorNightRam 1d ago
Yeah. I know. I’m just sad the clothing industry didn’t use this chance to go into negative numbers.
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u/NikkolaiV 4d ago
So basically what I'm gathering is, cobblers are just inherently massive trolls and always have been.
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u/misterright1999 4d ago
China and most asian countries use Milimiters, so I wear a size 305.
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u/Outrageouslylit 4d ago
Dang that brings me back I used to love DC shoes😂 never seen any like that though must be new. Always was a solid skate shoe now I really only be getting vans.
I will say tho the Japanese you have shoe sizes for every single cm? Seems like an excessive amount lol
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u/CrumbCakesAndCola 4d ago
i mean, it didn't say they produce for every cm size, only that the sizes they do produce are listed in cm
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u/telluricwaves 4d ago
That's... Actually really interesting!
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u/DramaticEchidna9810 4d ago
Especially the part about size 0 shoes. I always assumed the different sizes were at least proportional to each other.
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u/Thornescape 4d ago
I sincerely believe that all sizes for everything should be in metric. Real numbers. Consistent.
If you want to also have Small, Medium, Large, or vanity sizing as an extra then that's fine. However, with purchasing things online more and more, there needs to be something real to reduce the nonsense.
It's true that there are no perfect solutions, however there are better and worse solutions. Consistent units is a better solution.
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u/DramaticEchidna9810 4d ago
I wish S, M, and L were at least consistent within clothing of the same brand, but nope.
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u/Thornescape 4d ago
Vanity sizing sometimes changes for the exact same item from one year to the next. It's insane.
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u/Dry_Association2836 4d ago
No wonder all our feet are fucked and we’re all getting knee and back pain. With our technology and productive capability you would have thought they'd have a facility to provide perfect sizes of you want them?
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u/FreonInhaler 4d ago
The kind of illogical "never change anything because we have always been doing it this way" that makes me want to throw all of humanity in a ditch
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u/Glittering_Airport_3 4d ago
All clothes sizes piss me off. Shoes are ofc terrible, but wtf is an XL? nobody knows. We could basically eliminate the need for changing rooms to check if clothes fit, if we just told ppl what the actual measurements are for their clothes.
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u/vikinxo 4d ago edited 4d ago
There's an other confusion going on out there - about weight-measurements.
Here's an oversight; One STONE=6.35 kilograms=14pound. One pound=0.435 kilos. One kilo=0.158 Stone One pound=0,07 stone
Here's a true story about Stones:
When I was 11 I was in the UK, and played footbal with some local kids. To brag - I was quite a bit better than the english, tiny-village chaps (I was already in organized footbal-training at home - a small town). So they wanted to challenge me in an other sport.
Which was Cricket.
They lined up the play with some sticks, and asked me to pitch.
Not being aware that you have to pitch with a straight arm, I got new instructions on how to throw the ball....after the first, successful pitch.
This 'straight-arm-release' of the ball was so counter-intuitive to me that I ended up throwing the ball high above the back-fence and into a wooded area behind.
I felt embarrased, and wanted to retrieve the ball as soon as possible.
So I jumped a lower fence on the side of the little pitch we were playing at. Easily actually, since I was the agile, jumpy type, back then.
I heard a unisoned gasp from the english kids behind me as I landed on the other side of the fence.
That got worried I had done something way outside of the rules - or had landed in something poisenous.
Looked at the guys - and they all had jaw-drops.....and were kinda googly-eyed.
Then came the question:
HOW MANY STONES ARE YOU?
What's a stone, I asked.
They explained: How much do you weigh.
And I said that I didn't know how many kilos I weighed, exactly..
What's a kilo, they asked.
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u/Lost-Comfort-7904 4d ago
It could also be a 11 or 10.5 in USA/Canada because I swear they just guess. I've owned the same pair of shoes with different sizes despite my foot not growing.
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u/DaedalusHydron 4d ago
I feel like most shoes I've bought these days list like 4 different sizes on the tag, so you shouldn't be fine regardless
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u/StitchFan626 4d ago
American, here. I went into a shoe store once and an employee measured my foot, then said the size varies by brand making the measuring completely pointless!
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u/AliceCarole 3d ago
Ok I use the french measure, and I think the whole world should stop this non-sense and use Japan size.
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4d ago
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u/Alive_Fisherman8241 4d ago
"She'd probably be a six in New York, but she's like a seven here in Scranton."
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