this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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You know this content was brought to VeryBritishProblems by a spy when they talk about tea and CENTIMETERS.
Haha, sorry, I'm not even native. We spell it like that. I think it's only the French and the Brits (also because of the French) spelling them like metre or litre.
But yeah, I gave it away regardless.
I think more that it's just the Americans who spell them as "meter" (for the distance) and "liter". I think Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada etc all spell it as "centimetre" and "litre".
Also, in response to your first message, you're not going to find many Britons under ~60 who would ever use inches... except for measuring TV screens diagonally (for some reason).
Oh, now that you mention these countries, it all makes sense. True. I have overheard a couple of British youngsters (read: ~20-25 yo) recently, and they talked about their weight in stones and whatnot. It's weird because you can buy beer by the pint, but milk by the litre.
Yeah, there are weird holdovers and inconsistencies hanging on. Object weight is kilograms, but babies and drug weight is in either KG/G or "pounds and ounces". Human weight is in kg or "stones". Object height is in CM, but human height is in either CM or feet. Distances are measured in CM and Metres... until it's the distance travelled between cities or the speed of cars and then it's "miles".
It's a mess, really.
babies aren't human, problem solved