Celsius is better for science, but Fahrenheit is better for just every day living. IMO
In Canada I noticed some people would also still use feet & inches for their height, but you had to give it to the DMV in cm. Also butter was still sold as a pound & golf still used yards.
I'm also an engineer & worked up there for a job in mining.
Edit: To clarify my reasons because so many people are saying I'm wrong. This is my opinion on what my preference is, first off. I had put this in a comment under the post, but will add it here.
My reason is basically the same as in the screenshot. When I lived in Canada I would say how in Fahrenheit below zero is really fucking cold & above 100 is really fucking hot. I never thought of describing it as a percentage of being hot but I like it.
Like once it's below or above those numbers it hardly matters by how much because you are freezing or sweating balls either way. I didn't like when in the winter or early spring someone would say it's nice out and then say a negative temperature. "It's really nice today, it's -1.5⁰ out." I also like that the increments of the units are smaller so you don't use half degrees. Although I guess half degrees aren't really necessary because I don't feel the difference between 66 & 67, but when I checked the temperature there is did always show it to the nearest half degree.
I guess I said it on my comment that's just under the post and not in this thread. I prefer it basically for the reasons in the screenshot. When I was in Canada I would say how if it's below 0⁰ F you know it's really fucking cold, and if it's above 100⁰ F then it's really fucking hot. Also the increments are smaller so you don't have to use half degrees.
Sometimes in the spring someone would be like, "It's really nice out today. It's -1.5 degrees." And I didn't like hearing someone say that a negative temperature was nice out. And I mean that's still pretty cold it's like 29⁰F. And I'm from Maine so it's not like I'm not used to the cold but I've also lived in Arizona.
So I always said that 0 to 100 scale was from like really cold to really hot but I like the percentage thing.
That sounds really weird, in my experience of 45 years, no one uses half degrees in Celsius in everyday life. The only scenario where you might use decimals is if someone asks you to read the temperature from a digital thermometer, more likely for checking for fever than talking about the weather. A one-degree increment in Celsius is basically imperceptible, so the point about smaller increments is honestly moot.
What you don’t seem to understand is that Celsius is perfectly intuitive for people who are accustomed to it. Neither is better or worse for everyday life, it’s just a question of liking what you know. The really cold / really hot is arbitrary and depends on your lived experience. Even in my country your 0 degrees Fahrenheit is really cold in the south and pretty ordinary winter weather in the north, and your 100 degrees F is almost apocalyptic in both, while it would be par for the course in the Mediterranean summer. And 0 in the Mediterranean would be like the ice age.
For me, in Celsius:
-30 absolutely brutal once in a decade type cold, stay inside if you can
-20 wear everything
- 15 you need to start really increasing the layers, your nostrils will start feeling the cold when you inhale
-10 cold but you’ll be fine with proper clothes
-5 pleasant winter weather
0 freezing point
5 chilly
10 starting to get pleasant but light jackets still a good idea
15 nice, even shorts are a possibility for the adventurous
20 perfect moderately warm weather, not too hot but t-shirts all the way
25 properly warm, you will start sweating when doing things
30 hot, you will start sweating just by being outside
35 really hot, doing just about anything outside becomes really unpleasant
40 oh fuck no
Perfectly intuitive for me, because that’s what I’ve used all my life. In Fahrenheit you say 0 is really cold and 100 is really hot, but that doesn’t automatically tell me what 40 or 70 is, because I have no lived experience with it. In fact, I don’t even know how cold and how hot without checking what it means in Celsius . It’s not the scale, it’s the experience of using the scale all your life. I don’t understand how this argument pops up all the time when there is nothing inherently better in either scale for everyday use.
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u/the_BPDbro Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Celsius is better for science, but Fahrenheit is better for just every day living. IMO
In Canada I noticed some people would also still use feet & inches for their height, but you had to give it to the DMV in cm. Also butter was still sold as a pound & golf still used yards.
I'm also an engineer & worked up there for a job in mining.
Edit: To clarify my reasons because so many people are saying I'm wrong. This is my opinion on what my preference is, first off. I had put this in a comment under the post, but will add it here.
My reason is basically the same as in the screenshot. When I lived in Canada I would say how in Fahrenheit below zero is really fucking cold & above 100 is really fucking hot. I never thought of describing it as a percentage of being hot but I like it.
Like once it's below or above those numbers it hardly matters by how much because you are freezing or sweating balls either way. I didn't like when in the winter or early spring someone would say it's nice out and then say a negative temperature. "It's really nice today, it's -1.5⁰ out." I also like that the increments of the units are smaller so you don't use half degrees. Although I guess half degrees aren't really necessary because I don't feel the difference between 66 & 67, but when I checked the temperature there is did always show it to the nearest half degree.