Submitted 8 months ago by Snowman44@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
I’ve learned about them in school, but I’ve never heard anyone say something is 8 decameters long or anything like that. I’m an American.
For distance, no. Day to day we use mm, cm, m and km. But in more specialised settings (e.g. construction) I’ve seen sometimes decameters.
For weight yes, grams, hectograms, kg, tons. Liquids is usually ml, cl, liters, hectoliters (not sure it’s spelt that way).
In labs I’ve also seen also micro and nano of all three units.
Use cubes for water. Short for cubic meter. That is 1 meter by 1 meter by 1 meter which is also exactly 1000 liters.
This is one of the convenient metric parameters where they made an easy conversion allowing you to precisely use distance to calculate volume.
No, some measurements just aren’t used, even when they’d be a good fit.
Like lengths. We never use anything above km. Even for things like space, we say “million km” rather than gigametre.
The closest we come to hectometre is hectare, which is used for land area.
I’d say we use every 3 prefixes, nanometerw, micrometers, mm, m, km, than any much higher than that usually uses space units (parsecs, AU, lightyears, etc.)
Megameters are sometimes used, that’s not true.
Who uses megametres? It’s not something I’ve ever heard in the UK.
Where do you live and what is your profession? I have heard anyone use megameter seriously.
We do have a perfectly good word for inch : duim (thumb)
In The Netherlands we actually use “hectometerpaaltjes”, which translates to hectometer-signs. They are numbered signs placed on regional roads and highways every 100 meters, which is a hectometer. Although not a direct use of measurement, the term hectometer still is in active use this way.
In France “hectare”( 100m²) is used for fields and burning forest. Beside that deca or hectometers are never used
10.000 m2
Mb it’s 100m*100m
Hectares are also standard in Australia
Nz too apart from old people who still use acres.
From my experience in Norway, these are typical in context of daily speech:
Weight (gram): tonne (a substitute name for Mg (Mega)), kg, hg, g, mg, μg (mostly in medicine)
Distance (meter): km, m, dm (kinda rare), cm, mm
Volume (liter): l, dl, cl, ml
In my experience, the deca-predix is very rarely used. Most of the missing prefixes are just substituted for numbers, i.e. saying “a thousand kilometers” is much more common that “a megameter”. Of course, this differs depending on context, as a lot of the prefixes become more common within scientific fields where the sizes are common.
On a separate note, even the numbers can be a bit inconsistent. It has bothered me that it’s often common to say “a thousand milliard” instead of “one billion” (also note that we use the long scale).
In Germany Hectoliter is also used to calculate beer volume in commercial settings, like planning for a bar or a festival.
„Kommerziell“
From my experience in Norway, these are typical in context of daily speech: (…) km, m, dm (kinda rare), cm, mm
Don’t forget the Scandinavian mile! You and the Swedes use it all the time.
Not sure how I forgot that! Will edit it in!
μm and nm used in engineering and science fields fairly frequently
in school in austria we teach decimeters
decimeter is a good measure because one cubic decimeter (1 dm³) equals one liter ( 1L )
I’m a chemistry teacher so I regularly use dm³
Isn’t that just a liter?
Decimeter is used in older American botany books for some reason. Only place I’ve ever seen it
As an American who has gotten very used to metric units in studying engineering, the general rule I picked up is that you typically only change units every three orders of magnitude. So 8 decameters would typically be expressed as 80 meters, maybe 0.08 kilometers. Decameters and hectometers are a thing, but they’re not common units. Even centimeters don’t see much use compared to millimeters.
We usually go for the 3 order rule, but in the case of areas and volumes, for dimensional reasons, dam and hm make it into the three order rule. Dm (or dam) is not common but dam^3 has some uses, the same goes for hm, hm is used for only special situations (like meassuring train distances), but hm^2 is almost globally used for big chunks of land. Also, with hm^2, we always keep the unit, so for example, Parque Nacional Iguazú in Argentina has 67620 hm^2 (also ha or hectarea).
I’m also an engineer and I generally despise imperial units, but I have to say that inchs are pretty handy and the 1 in = 25,4000… mm relation is pretty neat
That might be true for science but in everyday use centimeters, hemkograms and the like are more common
for everyday use … hektograms and the like are more common
[citation needed]
It depends on the situation, sometimes they are really handy but most of the time we stick to kilo, centi and mili.
Where i live, Hecto (100x) is used, for example to measure distances and areas for big properties. 1 hectometro equalls 100 m, or 1 hectarea (hm^2) equals 10000 m^2.
Also, it is widely use for pressure, cause 1 atm is 1013 hPa
Decameters are used but for special situations, like quantifying natural gas consumption
Yes, they are used, but typically in specialized applications which is why you don’t see them every day.
In Poland: decimeters are sometimes used (I have been ordering cut sheet metal priced by square decimeters) , I have not seen decameters in use. Hectopascales are often used in weather reports. Decagrams are often used when buying food where these amounts make most sense (meat, candy).
The 'more exotic' prefixes are usually only used with some specific SI units and in very specific contexts.
You use decagrams for food? I’ve only ever seen hektograms being used for that
I think hectare, decibel are few of them?
In America, I’ve seen nurses and diabetics use deciliters in reference to medication or concentration before.
Deci is 0.1 and that gets used frequently, deka is 10 and never gets used at all, except in Austria when grocery shopping at the deli counter. 🤷
Hekto is 100 and similarly never gets used, not even by Austrians.
Norwegian here, hekto gets used when buying fresh meat or fish
Deciliters are not infrequently used in recipes here as well. I’ve never seen decameters or hectometers used by anyone.
I’m American, but follow mostly Europeans and Canadians online and use metrics in my own head just because it makes more sense.
I gather that the deca-/deka- and hecto- (along with a few other) prefixes are similar to imperial furlongs, leagues, stones, barrels, kegs, and hogsheads: They exist, but no one uses them outside of very specialized circumstances.
“Similar” = “not exactly”
Do you have a point? Or is this just continuing your pattern of half-baked smartass comments for the sake of half-baked smartass comments? Because we all give a damn what you think.
Sweden uses decimeters and deciliters
And hectograms. We just shorten it to ”hekto” though. It’s how we buy stuff from the deli. ”2 hekto salami please”.
The silly Austrians would ask for “20 Deka Salami, bitte.” It’s weird.
Sweden also uses mil for distance, which is 10^4 meters (10 km)
Sweden is also the only country in the world to have a sensible use of the word ‘miles’ (or ‘mil’ in Swedish):
10km = 1 mil
They use this a lot when speaking of travel distances longer than 20km.
In Canada anything over 20km is referenced as time. “it’s about an hour drive”
In Italy we use hectograms (“ettogrammi”, “etti” for short) in day to day life when buying groceries. You don’t ask for 200 grams of ham, you just ask for 2 etti.
Thinking how I always order deli meat in units of 100 grams, feels dumb we don’t do that in Canada too
Yeah I don’t think it’s very common elsewhere. Right over the border with France they were already saying “200 grams de jambon”.
But I think it’s convenient. Small number make brain hurt less, brain no need to think.
In Romania we use them for measuring areas. An “ar” is 100m^2 or a square decameter, and a hectare is a 10000m^2 or a square hectometer.
In Germany we only use hectare. Ar is something you learn in school and never use.
These two specifically - I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.
Hectoliters are sometimes used e.g. for measuring beer consumption for an event, decimeters in some informal contexts, some country commonly describe drink sizes in centiliters or deciliters.
Centimeters are common, I’d say more common than millimeters in informal context.
We use litres, which is one decimetre cubed. We use hectares, which is one hectometre squared. But the beauty of it is, that you can just convert everything to units that are more widely understood.
1 decimetre = 10 centimetres = .1 metres
1 hectometre = 100 metres = .1 kilometre
Hektoliter is common in Germany for measuring quantities of beer (not a single serving, of course, but when buying beer for some kind of venue)
Czech republic here: decagram used to weight ham, bacon 🥓 or salami. Usually as “deka” without the gram.
In metric units, we primarily use the x1000 or x1/1000 steps, with a few notable exceptions. We use the centimeter (1cm = 1/100m) quite commonly, the centiliter (1cl = 1/100l) is also relatively common with drinks, and, IIRC, the Austrians use the deka, short for decagram (1dg = 10g).
In Austria, some things like ground beef are ordered in decagrams. My wife used to get confused responses when she tried that in Germany :).
Decilitres/centilitres are relatively common, but they're the only ones that come to mind.
Saying something is 80 meters long is far easier to process than eight decameters.
I’ve seen some obscure uses in technical areas, but in general use no they aren’t used. Metric is better skipping all those and using the thousands prefixes. cm is used but mm is much better. Europe uses cl but we in Canada don’t, we use ml.
Europe uses cl, ml and dl. A can of coca Cola is 33 ml, a shot is 2 cl. Then you switch to litres at 0.5l.
We also use decilitre, but only in cooking, and I think most don’t think of it as 0.1 l, but rather just think of it as the size of a measuring cup, i.e. it has more in common with “1 cup of sugar” than with “0.5 liter of water” in terms of how you think about it. More abstract, if that makes sense.
Metric is better by a thousand (double entendre).
A can is 330ml or 33cl.
All labeling is in ml right now. Recipes still often use cl/dl.
Brewers use decalitres
Is deca-yards (decayards?) a word? Centayards?
If not, should they be words?
Gunter's chain is 20.1m, so half a Gunter is approximately a decameter; a rope would be unwieldy as it'd be one and two thirds rope per decameter.
Dekametre and hectometre, rarely. Mostly mm, cm, m, km.
In Europe, hg is relatively common, whereas in Canada, prices for deli products are “per 100 g” instead of per hg.
Also in Europe, cl and dl are common in recipes and bottles of alcohol, but in Canada, almost uniquely mL and L.
German with a scientific background. I can deduce the meaning of the words but I’ve never seen them used. I’m not even sure these units of measurement were mentioned when these were discussed. Most stuff is ton, kilogram, gram, miligram, microgram; kilometer, meter, centimeter, milimeter, micrometer. Rarely decimeter are thrown around.
I used to do land surveying in Canada and we’d use “decs” for decimetres when laying out points. You’d put down the rod, they’d tell you something like “dec and a half left” then you’d move closer and it’d be “two cents right” and you’d be even closer and then it’s like “3 mils right.” Then you’d take the shot and they’d tell you how much closer or farther you’d have to go to get the point. If you were way off to the point where you might have tens of metres, usually for rough layout we’d rarely use “dee-kays” for dekameters, but typically it would be just “30 metres north”.
empireOfLove@lemmy.one 8 months ago
They are “technically correct” measurements since they are a valid prefix, and could be used if you wanted. but they are very infrequently used in any industry. Since most of the time measurements are better served by higher precision (just using Meters) or need no precision at all over long distance (switch to kilometers). No need for excess measurement types unless necessary
XbSuper@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Bro skips right past centimetres.
empireOfLove@lemmy.one 8 months ago
Well he asked about deca and hectometers, which are all larger-than meters.
But the same kind of rules apply below the decimal point as above it. We have millimeters (0.001 extreme precision), centimeters (0.01 high precision), and meters (1 low-ish precision). Decimeters (0.1) exist but are rarely used since both meters and centimeters can get the same result. Micro meters and nanometers are also used more frequently, but it becomes industry specific when actually doing things that small.
ProvokedGamer@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Centimetres and meters are the two I use the most and see the most used, then kilometres at a close third.