America-vectorized units
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Today's SMBC starts with this panel:
After 8 more panels listing other countries, and ending with
"…Zambia, Zimbabwe, or at non-American landing sites on the moon, Mars, Venus, or asteroids."
we get
And then finally
The mouseover-title: "We must not let the modern world take the fun out of toxic nationalism jokes."
The aftercomic:
Update — One of Gamble Rogers' Oklawaha County Doctrines of Citizenship is
Never talk metric to decent folk.
Mai Kuha said,
October 11, 2025 @ 10:38 am
My college roommate, back in the 20th century: “The metric system is dumb. Nothing comes out even in it, like a nice simple 8 ounces always come out to 225.5 grams or some crap”.
J.M.G.N. said,
October 11, 2025 @ 11:31 am
https://dozenal.org/drupal/sites_bck/default/files/db31315_0.pdf
Sniffnoy said,
October 11, 2025 @ 12:07 pm
Honestly, when I saw how this comic started, with the speaker listing every country alphabetically, I had to wonder if that was a reference to Left Behind, where the Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia, does this in a speech, and it is globally received very well, instead of as tedious.
(I only know about this from reading about it on Slacktivist back in the day. :P )
J.W. Brewer said,
October 11, 2025 @ 12:46 pm
There was FWIW an aviation near-disaster in Canada back in the Eighties (averted only by a fortunate combination of pilot skill and dumb luck) that was caused by metrication, where a misunderstanding of the newfangled foreign measurements had led both flight crew and ground crew to think that the plane was taking off with enough fuel to make it to the scheduled destination when, in fact, it didn't have nearly enough fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
Crews of planes that traveled back and forth between the U.S. in Canada in those days would have needed to be mindful of the dialect difference between imperial gallons and U.S. gallons when refueling. I don't know if that ever led to dangerous misunderstandings or if the ubiquitous recurrence and salience of the dialect difference helped to keep people on their toes, just as the variation in which sort of dollars prices-per-gallon were quoted in would have.
Cervantes said,
October 11, 2025 @ 2:48 pm
I'm blanking on the specifics, but wasn't there a NASA mission to Mars that failed because they confused metric and U.S. units?
Off topic, but the weather forecast forces me to ask, what's with this "Nor'easter" concept? Heeyuh in New England we elide our Rs, not our THs. It's a "No'theastah." Who the hell says noreaster?
Mark Liberman said,
October 11, 2025 @ 3:48 pm
@Cervantes: "what's with this "Nor'easter" concept? Heeyuh in New England we elide our Rs, not our THs. It's a "No'theastah." Who the hell says noreaster?"
See "Nor'easter considered fake" (1/25/2004); "'A pretentious and altogether lamentable affectation'" (12/28/2010).
CuConnacht said,
October 11, 2025 @ 3:52 pm
Cervantes, the Mars Climate Orbiter, 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
Tim Rowe said,
October 11, 2025 @ 3:55 pm
Yes, the Mars Climate Orbiter crashed because JPL used metric and Lockheed Martin didn't convert to the Imperial units they used.
Cervantes said,
October 12, 2025 @ 7:03 am
@Mark L — It seems that while many lament this weird locution, nobody seems to have an explanation for where it came from.
Richard Hershberger said,
October 12, 2025 @ 7:10 am
Reprising the discussions about nor'easter inspired me to punch it into newspapers.com, to see if the miracle of digitized archives turns up anything. It does:
From the splendidly named Hull Packet and Humber Mercury, or Yorkshire and Lincolnshire General Advertiser of November 13, 1827, in a piece titled "Gleanings Along Shore," telling of a gentleman residing in Hearn Bay taking the Tower steps packet to Margate, which passes right by Hearn Bay. He wanted to take a boat from the packet to his home, but the Hearn Bay boatmen would not put of "in the teeth of a nor-easter," so he had to go all the way to Margate. This event was in Kent, not Yorkshire, FWIW.
Next item is from the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser of September 11, 1843, from one of those long travelers' reports so popular in the era, by "N.P.W." Our correspondent is traveling in the Aegean and has taken passage on a ship with "a yankee 'skipper'". At the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna "the captain stood looking over the leeward-bow rather earnestly" and predicted "We shall have a snorter out of the nor'east." They make anchor, and N.P.W. takes the opportunity to go ashore, where his party "scrambled up the rocky mountain side, with some loss of our private stock of wind, and considerable increase from the nor'easter…" (They find shelter with a view toward Lesbos, where N.P.W. contemplates "an Sappho publica fuerit".)
My final item is from the Port-Gibson (Mississippi) Herald of October 26, 1843, from a political item "Democratic Triumphs Come to Us on Every Breeze." It opens quoting a report of a Democratic candidate winning an election in New Orleans. It follows quoting a commentary item "How about that 'breeze' from Maryland! And that whirlwind from Georgia? Do they come with democratic triumphs? A few more such breezes will be the death of Locofoco democracy." It then closes with its own commentary: "And that cold Nor'easter from Pennsylvania and Ohio? Does it not bring your enthusiasm down to zero?"
I leave the interpretation of these items to others.
David Marjanović said,
October 12, 2025 @ 7:34 am
From reading the comments at the second link, and the above, it seems the word comes from fully rhotic accents of Northern Ireland and probably some places in Old England (and obviously didn't originally refer to that specific kind of storm off New England).
Richard Hershberger said,
October 12, 2025 @ 8:22 am
One more, because it is precisely the modern usage, from the Baltimore Sun of January 10, 1844. It is a piece about the snow falling at the time of writing. There were at that point several inches on the ground, allowing for sleighing on the streets. "'At this present writing' the bells are jingling after a fashion calculated to stir one's blood and make one laugh at a stiff nor'easter–or anything stiffer." Oh, and be sure to shovel your sidewalks after it stops: It's the law!
Philip Taylor said,
October 12, 2025 @ 11:33 am
My maternal grandfather, a master mariner who had run away to sea at the age of 13, and whose father before him was master of his own vessel (the Fanny, which sailed out of Maldon, Essex) taught me the 32 points of the compass. They started "North" (of course), then "North-by-East", and then "North-North-East". The last, however, was never pronounced in full, but always abbreviated to "Nor-Nor-East". Now Maldon at that time was definitely rhotic, but with the advent of so-called "Eastuary English", the rhoticity has all but disappeared (as has the Maldon.accent, much to my regret).
Chris Partridge said,
October 12, 2025 @ 11:34 am
Back in the 70s I worked at the British plant of an American engineering company that also had a plant in Belgium. As a result, everyone in the drawing office could convert from metric to imperial in their heads, to three decimal places.