Silly-sounding question: when describing characters, is it better to give heights, weights, and so on, in imperial measurements, or should one use metric nowadays? Despite frequently using metric measurements for most other things, I still find I have to estimate people's dimensions using the measurements that I grew up with. Does that date me, or is it generally okay?

Alex

Gosh, I'd be really interested to hear views on this. If I read that someone was nearly two metres tall, or a town was x kilometres away, it would mean very little to me - but I am, ahem, a lady of mature vintage. For people who grew up learning nothing but metric, it may be different.

What do others think?

Okay - I've just spoken to my fourteen-year-old daughter and asked

'How tall are you?'

'Five foot eight. Why?'

'Don't worry. How much do you weigh?'

'I'm not telling you.' She blushes. 'What do you want to know for?'

'No reason. If I asked you how much you weigh in kilogrammes, what would you say?'

'What are kilogrammes?'

Does this give you the answer? I was going to tell, but decided to show


Sharley

P.S. I think younger people (I like to include myself!) use a mix of imperial and metric. When discussing the depth of snow on Facebook (and other items ) we've discussed inches. I've actually recalculated 15cm to almost six inches to suit my friends.

Weight is imperial (stones, oz), as is height - and most recipes.

However, liquid seems to be metric - as do most small measurements, eg a piece of wood can be 6cm long (I genuinely went to say sausage then, but decided against it).



<Added>

6cm? - I guess that's a small sausage!!!

The US still uses feet and pounds, don't they? Since they'd be the biggest resale market, rather than Europe, I'd go for Imperial.

I think there are slight differences between UK and US imperial measurements.

Eg
UK pint = 20 fl oz
US pint = 16 fl oz

Not that I'm an expert, as I don't cook!

Sharley

That's all very interesting. I was sure I would hear that kids only understand metres and kilogrammes for measuring everything. That was based on the fact that once, during a conversation with nephews and nieces a few years ago, I got asked, "How big is an inch?"

US pint = 16 fl oz

Yes, and 8 US pints = 1 US gallon (which is, therefore, 4/5 of a UK gallon). Then Americans ask you how much petrol is per gallon, and completely fail to listen to any explanations about the fact that we're buying 25% more petrol than they've understood from our similarly-named-yet-quantitatively-different units of measure.

Alex

My daughter isn't representative of the younger generation, but I've never heard a child measure themselves in anything but feet and inches and weight themselves in anything but stones and pounds.

I guess it differs between areas and schools - but I would say that it hasn't translated fully into metric (unlike litres, which seems to have overcome gallons).

Sharley

I think I would use whatever the POV character would use - if that makes sense.

So if the scene were being viewed through the eyes of Miss Marple then definitely old money. But if we're seeing via Hercule Poirot then metric.

But unless there was an actual need for the character's vital statistics, I must admit I'm not a big fan of giving them. It's like books where they describe the clothes in minute detail. I find it weird and distracting!

I would never want to know the height or weight of anyone, Tell me she's hefty and I'd get it much better.

It's more a case of one character estimating another's height etc. relative to themselves, rather than me the author doing an 'Ian Fleming' on them. Along the lines of "an inch or two taller/shorter than his/her x feet y inches/z metres w centimetres".

Looks as if I'll stick with feet and inches, based on this feedback.

Hefty?! How very dare you

I prefer "with reserves"

I'd agree, it depends on the character and what they're measuring. My children think of themselves in feet and inches, but cook metric, and so on...

Imperial isn't entirely reliable for keeping US readers happy (and will piss of Aussi and Kiwi readers anyway) because of phenomena such as the fact that they don't think in stones anyway...

I was getting some work done at home recently and was sent to the building suppliers for some wood. When asked what length I needed, I said;

'1 meter, 6 inches.' .

Took me a while to figure out why he was looking at me so strangely.

Edel

Fannie Flagg has a lovely way of describing men, such as Will Shimfissle who was " no more than five foot five inches tall and one hundred fifteen pounds soaking wet".
She doesn't give exact sizes for the women, just comparisons. Will Shimfissle's wife Elner is simply described as tall and stocky.

Off-topic, but this is reminding me of the photo i saw this week of the new coffee STarbucks is launching in the States - called a Trento. it's 930ml big. 600 cals if you have it white.


We are all going to end up like the humans in Wall-E.