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Yards, feet and Football pitches (lemmy.nz)
submitted 6 months ago by daveywaveyboy@feddit.nl to c/anythingbutmetric@discuss.tchncs.de
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Without looking it up don’t know how 22 yards compare to 115 feet or why you would use different Measures, but why half a Football pitch?i assume that’s american Football but if not then for real Football while FIFA recommends 105 Meters actually the length can be between 100 and 100 Meters so if 115 feet is about 35 Meters that is not even close to half a - oh my Brain just Exploded

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[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

This isn't an "anything but metric" though.

They're using a visual example of the size they described.

They didn't say "that's 22 meters" or twelve bananas, or whatever silly example unit might be subbed in.

Most people don't have good spatial sense based off of raw units, no matter what those units are.

American football fans tend to be good with yardage, so I assume regular football fans probably are similarly capable with meters, but I doubt if you gave a soccer hooligan an length in centimeters they'd automatically grasp what that looks like, even though the metric units should make that easier. It's a mental barrier you have to overcome with familiarity/practice.

A football field, however, is familiar enough to most Americans to be used as a rough sketch of lengths. We use school busses too, even when not dealing with metric units. There's just some things so visually familiar that they make good comparitors. That would be the same if the US used metric, because raw units just don't "fit" most people's brains in a way that lets them visualize what it really means.

I get where you're coming from, but I don't think this fits the vibe of the c/very well.

[-] JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 months ago

Yeah the real issue here is that the numbers don't match up, regardless of units.

[-] daveywaveyboy@feddit.nl 2 points 6 months ago

Fair thanks

this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
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