• nexguy@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Question, why do Europeans measure height in meters then centimeters(or just centimeters). It seems to make more sense to use decimeters then centimeters. Just one of those traditional things?

    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 months ago

      As someone else said, decimeters aren’t actually used by anyone. In fact, other than centimetres and decibels, I can’t think of any commonly-used unit that uses a prefix that isn’t a power of 1000. (kilo, mega, milli, micro, etc. are all powers of 1000)

        • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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          6 months ago

          Hadn’t heard of that - neither the unit nor the prefix. Turns out the prefix is actually hecto meaning 100, and are isn’t a commonly used unit. Thanks for that!

          • uis@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            Used in agriculture. Are sometimes also called hundred/sotka. There is also deca- prefix.

            • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              Here’s my favorite German boomer humor, because it’s just so crude:

              Shirt which says "Liebe vergeht, Hektar besteht".

              Verbatim translated, it says: Love fades, hectare stays.

              Basically, it’s saying you should marry someone not for love, but rather for how many hectare of farmland they have, because in a long marriage, you’ll supposedly benefit more from the latter.

      • Joe Cool@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        As someone else said, decimeters aren’t actually used by anyone.

        Tell that to the Austrians. You can easily spot Austrian recipes and sizes by the use of dL and dm. In most of the rest of Europe you’d be right. Also maybe only older Austrians use it more frequently.

      • nexguy@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        M / cm It’s such a large difference in length you’d think decimeters would make sense.

        • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          It’s not needed, because converting between them takes no effort.

          If someone tells you “50 centimeter”, you’ll know immediately that it’s 5 decimeter or 0.5 meter.

    • eldain@feddit.nl
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      6 months ago

      Yeah, basically habit of using two digits precision whenever the meter is too big. Conveniently, the first two digits are centimeters. This comic is weird because our dude is using centimeters above 100 and adds millimeters and 10th milimeters to his length, must have been bald shaved at a precision doctor to get these numbers.