Do you think any aliens exist in the universe?

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Your Earth-Moon distances need an adjustment. Metres not kilometres.

Sorry. I do that all the time.

Maybe the problem is the peculiar units. Try meters and kilometers.

A meter is what one uses to measure the use of electricity, water or gas. The units are of French origin, and are basically proper names. Spelling them the American way is like spelling Ampere as Ampeer or Andre as Ander.

We may need to agree to disagree on who is misspelling or cheating whom.
For honest Americans, an inch is 1/39.37 of a meter/metre. That's 2.54000508 centimeters no matter how you spell centimeter. But buy something by the inch in Europe and you'll get only 2.54000000 centimetres. Even such a small swindle can add up after a while.

On the topic of who's shortchanging whom I was saddened to learn recently that the "Baker's dozen" (13, if you Anglophobes didn't know) was introduced in the 13th century and did NOT arise as a token of bakers' generosity. Just the opposite: They were selling underweight loaves, so threw in a 13th item to avoid lawsuits.

Britain (that includes England, land of the Angles) uses metric; the Anglophobes use American common measurements (except for scientists and some other professionals). I knew about the baker's dozen, but then I am not an Anglophobe (unlike many Americans seem to be).
BTW, which of these is correct:
1 mile = 1.6 kilometres (approx), OR
1 miel = 1.6 kilometers (approx).

 

[Swammerdami]

BTW, which of these is correct:
1 mile = 1.6 kilometres (approx), OR
1 miel = 1.6 kilometers (approx).

Speaking of Anglophones, where I live ALL distances are presented in km. (I assume King Charles' subjects at least allow us the usual "km" abbreviation if we're don't dare to write it out in full.) Nevertheless at least two Anglophones, upon seeing a road sign like "Nakhon Sawan 25" will say "It's 25 miles to the city." They are aware (I think) that kms and miles/miels are different, but can't be bothered. In their dialect "mile" translates as "whatever the local longish unit of distance is."

Similarly an Aussie once told me his house lot was "five acres." He had a largish lot -- big enough for a stinky pig enterprise -- but it was no five acres. In his dialect, again, "acre" translated as "whatever the local unit of land area measurement is." The local unit here is the rai (400 square wah) which is about 0.395 acres. (Haven't Aussies converted to hectares? A rai is 0.1600000 hectares.)

When you buy a plank of wood in the USA, I think the three dimensions are given in inches, inches, and feet -- all ancient English measures. In Europe it's cm, cm, met{er}s -- all meteric. But Thailand is ecumenical! The thickness is described with inches, the width with centimeters, and the length with sok. (The [sok] -- fingertip-to-elbow -- is ¼ of the wah -- fingertip-to-outstretched-fingertip.)