I Am Converting
By AnjaP
@Rollo1 (16676)
Boston, Massachusetts
November 18, 2015 5:44am CST
Two days ago, people were remarking on the beautiful weather. "It feels like April!", a neighbor in a spring jacket exclaimed as she wielded a rake and shielded her eyes from the sun. I would have remarked "Remember - 'April is the cruellest month', beware" but she wouldn't have read T S Eliot's The Waste Land and besides, I have discovered that when neighbors speak, it is best to smile and nod, lest you find yourself involved in a lengthy discourse on the private lives of people you simply don't care about and don't wish to know.
And cruelty indeed, as this morning it is 24 F, which I am converting to -4 C for those of you who are of the Celcius persuasion. Temperatures sound much colder in Celcius, but they fail to sound impressive enough when it's hot. I wish to convert everyone back to the sensible and much more precise Fahrenheit.
And now I must convert The Boy. In recent years, November was the month in which I could finally convert him from wearing shorts into long pants. But this year, he hasn't been wearing shorts as part of his new fashion style. Unfortunately, neither do hoodies and jackets figure into his style at all. Millions of kids go to school every day in a coat or a jacket, take it off when they get there, and then put it back on for the trip home. That's too complicated for him. He can't be bothered. He will try to pretend he isn't cold for as long as he can.
I am going to convert F into C in order to make it sound colder. Perhaps that will work. It certainly doesn't help when nature throws a warm day around the week before Thanksgiving, making foolish people believe it's a new Spring instead of frosty November.
Can I convert you? Would you feel colder if I said it was -4 rather than 24? When it's 100 degrees Farhenheit and sweat is dripping into your eyes, don't you feel a bit cheated by confessing - "it's 37 degrees" ?
14 people like this
15 responses
@WorDazza (15826)
• Manchester, England
18 Nov 15
Surely Celsius makes far more sense. Freezing point of water = 0. Boiling point of water = 100. Totally logical.
Although, I suppose Kelvin is the most logical. Absolute zero (i.e. the coldest thing physically possible) = 0.
That's it, I've decided. I'm using Kelvin now!!
4 people like this
@Rollo1 (16676)
• Boston, Massachusetts
18 Nov 15
It may "make sense" but Celcius just doesn't give you the precision necessary to really express how the weather makes you feel. After all, a slight rise from 32 to 33 F and you can say "it's above freezing" and feel warmer. But it takes more to get from 0 to 1, and so your happiness is delayed. And frost-bitten. Now, Kelvin might be useful, and no one will understand you when you talk about the weather.
3 people like this
@WorDazza (15826)
• Manchester, England
18 Nov 15
@Rollo1 I think the precision would come from using a decimal point, although I do accept that's a concept that may be way beyond many people!!!
Kelvin would make 'freezing' seem positively balmy. "Won't need the coat today it's 273.15 outside"!!!
2 people like this
@Rollo1 (16676)
• Boston, Massachusetts
18 Nov 15
You may have heard about how brash and unruly and aggressively independent we Americans are, but sometimes it is a good thing. Because we simply rejected Celsius and all those horrible metric measurements. A cup of flour, a gallon of milk and yes, dammit, I will weigh myself in pounds! And my temperature is in Fahrenheit!
@sueznewz2 (10409)
• Alicante, Spain
18 Nov 15
I know what you mean.... it does sound much more impressive in Fahrenheit... 
2 people like this
@JudyEv (381758)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Nov 15
@Rollo1 I know 37C equals about 100F but I feel I need to be more exact on here. There was a lot of kerfuffle when Australia converted to decimal. There was the story of the farmer whose acreage had halved (acres to hectares) and overdraft doubled (pounds sterling to decimal).
@Tampa_girl7 (54714)
• United States
18 Nov 15
I always use Fahrenheit. I need to learn Celsius.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
18 Nov 15
growing up April always trolled, just when you thought yay shorts, there would be an ice storm
1 person likes this
@fawkes62 (1276)
• United States
18 Nov 15
It does sound colder in C, but F definitely sounds hotter on those hot days. My son, 11 years old, refused to wear a coat for quite a while saying he wasn't cold in his sweatshirt. I think he did it more to annoy his sister, 13, who is always cold. I'm not home when they leave for the bus, so she would tell him he needs a coat and he would say he wasn't cold. I guess if I was him I would do it to annoy my sister too.
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12069)
• United States
18 Nov 15
I prefer Fahrenheit. The others might be more logical, but tradition is tradition. I do know that my favorite temperature is 73F and 23C. Learned this from being stuck at a red light frequently near a bank that displayed the temperature both ways.
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12069)
• United States
19 Nov 15
@Rollo1 Me too, but I don't use Celsius enough to know whether it is actually more expressive.
@JESSY3236 (22199)
• United States
18 Nov 15
My fiance wears shorts even in the winter. I just don't understand it. I rather be warm than be in "style."
1 person likes this
