why does everyone use centigrade for lower temperatures?

[crisgal]

ant then use faranheit (sp?) for the higher ones?
Why are people saying: Ooh, it's MINUS three degrees! When really, it's about 22 degrees.
Then they switch back in the summer and say, it's going to be in the NINETIES today!
It's driving me mad!!

[jno]

must be something to do with Fahrenheit during daylight saving, Celsius when the clocks go back... good point, though. I suppose it's because F is a silly scale; everyone thinks freezing should be 0; at the hotter end, they stick with F because it's what they were brought up with.

[society]

don't allow simple things like that drive you mad.

[alavahalf]

I boarded up a broken window yesterday...it was 54'' wide and 235mm high....suits me..!

[ChuckFickens]

I might pop to the pub for a 568ml when I've finished at work.

[ORANGEANDPROUD]

You may think Fahrenheit is a silly scale but that is because when he devised his scale, Fahrenheit used salt water to get the lowest temperature he could and called that Zero. He later fiddled around with the scale and on it, water froze at 32 °F. I suppose it makes more sense nowadays to use a negative number in Celsius rather than say 22 °F or "ten degrees of frost" as Americans often say.

[jno]

Orange, I have no doubt Fahrenheit is a useful scale for squid and other salt water dwellers. But my ancestors emerged from the oceans six or seven generations ago, so it is of no further use to me. Vive la celsius.

[Jumbuck]

oh yes, those dmnd Europeans forcing their continental temperatures on us

[jno]

I was thinking of his mum, tonyted. Clarion, I think there was a general move towards Celsius in the 60s or thereabouts, all part of decimalisation - I seem to recall Australia and Canada, for instance, introduced it along with dollars and kilos. (Canada already had dollars, since the 1860s.) It wasn't just a Euro thing.

[KARL]

It has all to do with some people being confused about things generally (uncertain in all scales), or else strongly feeling it is their natural right to be part of a dying breed. What usually surprises me is when someone comes from a summer holiday in Europe somewhere and says the temperature was a hundred or more. I realise that they must be speaking in Farenheit, but why did they go to the trouble of converting the temperature because there won't have been a Farenheit thermometer with hundreds/thousands of miles and all reports would have been in Celsius. Like you, I find this clinging onto confusing scales irritating (a bit like nearside/offside with cars - what's wrong with plain left and right, unless you simply want to confuse or pose with your own secret code). That is why I sometimes reply to the returning holidaymaker that, well, it was 292 (say, if it was 19 Celsius) here at home (Kelvin).

[carlton23]

It`s the miles - kilometres and weight and measures I`m still trying to train the brain to accept. How far is that? and how heavy is that? It`s daft I call it!! Well, I am 75 you know....

[mightyWBA]

The weatherman on the BBC is expecting 4 inches tonight :-S

[Buenchico]

My pet hate is hearing weather presenters (and others) referring to 'degrees Celsius'. The 'degree Centigrade' was replaced by the 'Celsius', so saying "six degrees Celsius" is equivalent to saying "six degrees degrees Centigrade". (The present should simply say "six Celsius"). When referring to the Celsius scale, the word 'degree' is redundant except when referring to temperature differences.

Chris

PS(1): The change from Fahrenheit to Celsius has very little with the UK joining the EU. The whole world (with the exception of the USA) now uses Celsius, which was becoming the British standard when I started secondary education in 1964 (well before we joined the EEC).

PS(2): There used to be a shop in Boston (Lincs) where all of the carpets in the window were priced 'per square yard'. The shop was called 'The Metric Carpet Shop'!

[Mustardmit]

LOL I used to laugh listening to the shipping forecast when I was a kid: "Hail, thunder, gale-force winds imminant, torrential rain....GOOD !"

[jno]

better tell Wikipedia, Chris

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius

What I was told (at school long ago) was that it was the old centigrade scale, but it had been renamed because 'centigrade' was being reserved as a wider term for any scale based on 100. This site says the same:

http://everything2.co...ius+versus+Centigrade

[ORANGEANDPROUD]

Buenchico, the BIPM says "The unit of Celsius temperature is the degree Celsius, symbol °C, which is by definition equal in magnitude to the kelvin. A difference or interval of temperature may be expressed in kelvins or in degrees Celsius"

[vulcan]

I don't think it matters which system you use so long as it makes sense to you personally. What I don't understand is the mixed system.
B&Q sell blockboard 8' X 4' x 25mm.

[crisgal]

yes, we were always taught to stick to one thing or another - but never to mix!

[squarebear]

It's to make it sound more dramtic. 0 degrees sounds colder than 32 in a similar way that 98 degrees sounds hotter than 37.