Say I’m talking to an American and I want to convey very small quantities like 1 mm or 1 g. What units should I use?

50 comments

  1. We learn metric in school and some products – big soda bottles are two liters, wine is 750 ml etc – are also measured with metric.

  2. Those units. We learn them in school, and many products are dual-labeled in grams/ounces, lbs/kgs, mL or L/fluid ounces, and inches/cm or mm.

  3. You can use 1mm or 1 g. Even if we don’t know the exact amount, we know it’s very little. Also, anyone who’s ever bought pot knows grams.

  4. Most of us have a basic understanding of what you mean. We get exposed to the metric system it’s just not used all the time and imperial would make more sense depending on what you’re measuring.

    Weight and volume are pretty easy for us because we see both all the time. Asking someone how many kilometers it is to the nearest airport is not because distance and height are not typically converted, but everyone has an iPhone in their pocket with a conversion calculator so…. Yeah you’re fine

  5. If you’re selling drugs, they’ll know grams.
    Otherwise, what’re you being so specific about? Lol

  6. You’d still be able to use milimeters and grams. Like when I’m looking at jewelry online it lists sizes in mm, even for american websites. We aren’t unfamiliar with the measurements, we just don’t use them much. You’d probably also buy gold in grams, if you were doing that.

    It probably comes up less often because it’s rare to measure things that small. Plus we tend to measure in volume rather than weight.

  11. I would use miles.

    Are you guys seriously under the impression that we don’t use millimeters, grams, etc.?

  12. If what you are doing has a precision on the order of a mm or gram, just use them. But if you are describing something as being 8000mm long or weighting 14000 grams you might want to use something else. For many things these are frequently used over imperial units, cameras and guns use mm, drugs will be sold mostly in grams.

  14. We are acquainted with the metric system in school, and most people will have had to have done something with it at some point or another. People broadly know those are small amounts of things.

    Or you can just add the gesture 🤏

  15. Probably use those units, as other responses have suggested. For small imperial units of length we would use fractions of an inch in powers of 2, ie 1/2 inch, 1/4 in, 1/8 in, and 1/16 in (about 1.6 mm).

  18. Whatever you feel like, hold your fingers up really close together for all we care. Unless something has to be cut exactly that long. Then say the measurements and we’ll look at the bottom half of the tape measurer.

  21. As others have said, mm or gram would probably do, but you can also break up ounces and inches into fractions, like 1/16 of an inch or something like that.

  23. Those lol, we know what they are. I’ve used metric to describe shit too.

    Hell, some stuff here is measured in metric.

  24. A millimeter is about a 25th of an inch and a gram is little less than five-sixths of a scruple, so go with those.

  25. We know the basic ones (mm, cm, m, km / g, kg). Don’t use hectaliters or whatever and you’ll be fine

  26. You can use those units.

    Most would probably find it amusing if you used something like “millipounds” though.

  29. 1 mm is 0.00001093613 football fields.

    2 mm is 0.00002187226 football fields.

    3 mm is 0.00003280839 football fields.

    etc.

  33. The US uses a mix of metric and customary usage.

    We use inches to measure small lengths, but anything less than 1 inch we’ll often measure in cm or mm.

    It’s also common to use grams here for very small weights, especially when weighing powdered things.

  35. Those units. We use them too.

    I’m really starting to wonder wtf is up with non-Americans knowing why we’re so different but not knowing why we’re alike. Lmaoooo like what

  37. It depends on what you want to do

    If you mean you need to communicate an exact weight or length on that scale, then just use metric. Any caliper or scale will have those units available, and Americans know a gram isn’t heavy and a millimeter is short.

    If you’re wondering how things on that scale are handled with the US Customary system, then I think you’re in fractional inches or mils (1 mil = 0.001 inch) for length and grains for weight (one gram is a bit over 15 grains)

  38. It depends what you’re doing. If it’s engineering or science (or drugs) you’ll be fine. For woodworking or laymans type things, you may want to use ounces, or fractions of an inch.

  39. Millimeters to me seem very common. That should be no problem.

    Grams are less common. I doubt many people here can directly relate to 100 grams, which was a selling unit for cheese when I was in Morocco. A couple of grams might or might not be meaningful. It depends on the person.

  42. We use those units often, to indicate things are small or light. We also use inches and ounces. Both are *sort* of interchangeable, though mm and g are definitely used most often when the measurement is extra small. People are more likely to say “3mm” than they are to say “36mm”. In the latter case, you’d hear “about 1.5 inches”. Similarly, people will say “yeah it’s really light, like only 4 or 5 grams” but they’re not going to describe something as being 85g, rather than describing it as being 3 ounces.

  44. For one mm you can just say “a tiny bit more than thirty nine thousandths of an inch” but unless you’re talking to a machinist it might not help LOL

  47. We are fine with units like mm or grams, most are fine with kilometers and kilograms too. It’s Celsius that we really don’t intuitively know well at all besides 0 being 32 and 100 is 212.

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