this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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I've mostly killed imperial (well, US Customary) wolf by living outside of freedom-unit-land. Not so much intentionally, but my brain doesn't like miles and the like anymore. I do wish a third of a meter had a standardized nickname because 'about a foot' (about 30cm) is something people use all the time (including those that have never known the imperial/us customary system).
"A foot" is simply not a thing outside of English-speaking world as far as measurements do. Even for the actual foot measurement, there are different shoe sizes.
Yes, in Ukraine we just say 'thirty centimeters', or 'three hundred millimeters' if you want to sound properly pedantic. We have shortcut words like 'half-meter', but 'third-meter' just sound weird and forced, you would just say '33 centimeters'. And decimeters is not used anywhere except for some technical slang like 'decimeter antenna', and even then they usually clarify the actual wavelength in centimeters. The centimeter is also easy to visualize, it's the thickness of your finger.
Also, common calipers only measure up to 150 millimeters, and tape measure is usually 3 or 5 meters. There are not a whole lot of things that are foot-length, it's usually either below 10 cm or above 1 meter, if you measure floor area or furniture.
About the most common use of decimeter is probably when describing the cubic shape of the volume 1 liter.