Why do Americans measure everything in cups?

Chris@feddit.uk to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 198 points –

Used a couple of US recipes recently and most of the ingredients are in cups, or spoons, not by weight. This is a nightmare to convert. Do Americans not own scales or something? What's the reason for measuring everything by volume?

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Blame the French and British, we got it from them!

Like 99% of the world, the French and British long ago managed to overcome the imperial system. Actually, the French spearheaded the metric world.

America just failed, time and again, to follow the times.

The british didn't quite overcome the old ways of measuring. They still use miles, pints, stone, and so on.

Companies just need to print the metric amount on the box as well.

We like mixing them up too. Tyres are measured using three numbers, two of which are in mm, the other (wheel diameter) is in inches.

The british didn’t quite overcome the old ways of measuring.

Not completely, agreed, but they are miles ahead of the Americans. :-)