In NZ, all legal weights and measures are metric, yet for some stubbornly cultural reason we still tend to discuss height in feet and inches (ladies on dating apps who are discriminating on height will specify that you need to be 6 foot, not 183cm) the weight of a newborn baby in pounds (but only for newborn babies!), and order our beer in pints, which generally means "a large glass of beer somewhere between 400 and 600mL". Also for some reason ordering a "12th" means a "half pint", and I'm really not sure why.

But the good craft beer places have a sign saying what their pints are in millilitres to prevent unpleasant surprises when you were expecting 568mL but got 425mL.

The "above six foot" rule seems like it's just a round number, but in the US at least:

* height is normally distributed for men.

* The average height of a man is 5'9".

* The standard deviation for men's height is 3".

So six foot is one standard deviation above average. I am sure one or more of the above does not hold for NZ. I just think this is neat, that the commonly stated preference happens to be for one standard deviation above the average.

A neat coincidence only. America consists of lots of ethnicities. Some bring that average up and some bring it down. There’s some preference for intra-ethnicity dating.

"Pint" varies in the US as well, when ordering a beer. You're just gonna get whatever glass they have.

They'll probably tell you if they know it's not a true pint, but I expect most bartenders have no idea.

A lot of the shittier bars will have glasses that look like pints but only hold 14oz, 12oz of beer 2oz of foam.

The German system where there's a line on the glass that needs to be reached by beer under penalty of law puts a smile on my face.

A pint in the USA is 16 fluid ounces. In the UK (in the ‘imperial’ system) it is 20. [Technically the fluid ounce is also different in the two systems, but not enough to matter at this scale.]

Some US bars will serve imperial pints on request and/or offer them for British or Irish beers.

The difference is about 10% which is easily noticeable.

Typically in a British pub you will be served beer in a glass that is calibrated as “pint to brim”, and any head on the beer is taken out of the nominal pint. So usually a pint as served is much closer to half a litre.

I feel like I need to specify that the Dutch sometimes coloquially also use pounds and ounces, but Dutch pounds are exactly 500 grams and Dutch ounces 100 grams.

Crikey, that’s a big ounce! Rough rule of thumb is that an egg is about 2oz.

Imagine if the imperial foot was one centimeter longer. Then men on dating apps would need to be minimum 188cm (because round number).