Questions for Foreigners

[Payne_Hall]

Low tide?

It was an octopus farm. Guy drove a hover car in a tentacle story. That’s my personal theory.

Edit: It took me a full 30 minutes to realize how random and weird that sounded. They left me unsupervised and without my muzzle...

 

[SimonDoom]

It was an octopus farm. Guy drove a hover car in a tentacle story. That’s my personal theory.

Edit: It took me a full 30 minutes to realize how random and weird that sounded. They left me unsupervised and without my muzzle...

They're coming for you now, so watch yourself.

 

[Payne_Hall]

They're coming for you now, so watch yourself.

The end result is going to look like a scene from that 2000’s movie The Little Vampire.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The Perth one could be a e/w typo...?

I read a fair bit of fanfic and the worst errors usually come along with what sound like American teenage girl speech patterns ("Anyways, are we dating now?" said no Brit ever, especially not James Bond...) and an obsession with blueberry pancakes or worse, something called blueberry scones.

We do still use lots of Imperial measurements but foreigners often get the wrong ones. People over 70 would still give temperatures in Fahrenheit, someone under 50 wouldn't though they'd understand it. Pretty much everyone still gives height in feet and inches (and bra sizes are inches, too) and distances for driving are in miles, for running usually in k. Cooking is by weight not volume but either imperial or metric. Pints are 20oz not 16 - a shock to many a student from America thinking he can down more pints than the Brits.

People expecting table service in pubs or asking for the bill (better than 'check' but still wrong), worrying about 'fraternizarion policies' at work - I'm guessing this must exist in America but the idea of a ban on relationships set by an employer is totally alien, and most of all, not realising the density of cities like London. You get authors giving characters houses in z2 fairly-central London (just about plausible) with garages (I'm raising eyebrows) who drive to work in central London (er, no) and then, the absolute deal-breaker, choose to drive to a restaurant in Soho...

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

The Perth one could be a e/w typo...?

I read a fair bit of fanfic and the worst errors usually come along with what sound like American teenage girl speech patterns ("Anyways, are we dating now?" said no Brit ever, especially not James Bond...) and an obsession with blueberry pancakes or worse, something called blueberry scones.

We do still use lots of Imperial measurements but foreigners often get the wrong ones. People over 70 would still give temperatures in Fahrenheit, someone under 50 wouldn't though they'd understand it. Pretty much everyone still gives height in feet and inches (and bra sizes are inches, too) and distances for driving are in miles, for running usually in k. Cooking is by weight not volume but either imperial or metric. Pints are 20oz not 16 - a shock to many a student from America thinking he can down more pints than the Brits.

People expecting table service in pubs or asking for the bill (better than 'check' but still wrong), worrying about 'fraternizarion policies' at work - I'm guessing this must exist in America but the idea of a ban on relationships set by an employer is totally alien, and most of all, not realising the density of cities like London. You get authors giving characters houses in z2 fairly-central London (just about plausible) with garages (I'm raising eyebrows) who drive to work in central London (er, no) and then, the absolute deal-breaker, choose to drive to a restaurant in Soho...

This is so true...and funny, too. When I first came to England I was completely baffled by the way Brits measured weight, approached temperature scales, and absolutely refused to drive anywhere in London, that's what the Tube is for; I called it 'The Underworld' until Will realized what I was saying and told me it's 'The Underground'. Probably explains some of the strange looks I was getting...
I didn't really start driving until we moved out of London, to our first house, in Caterham, and even then I only drove to Caterham station to leave the car in the all day parking-permit zone and take the train into Central London.

Stones: even if the weight measurement is allegedly metric, everyone still used the old weights, because they understood them better; the first time I asked someone what their weight was and they said '14 stones' I had to go and ask one of the nurses what he was talking about. A 'stone' is 14lbs, but I didn't know that, no-one told me because it's just an accepted given that brits know what it means.

People would look strangely at me when I mention that it was 23 degrees outside and they'd go 'no, it's minus 5...?' because they're still thinking in Celcius below zero, yet when I play along and say 'it's 29 degrees out there they'll say 'no it's not, it's 84F today' using Fahrenheit when it gets hot. It confused the hell out of me for ages.

Of course now I do it to my friends and relatives when they come visit; they still find the metric system a total mystery, panic at traffic roundabouts, and look strangely at me when I give way, the other driver indicates 'thank you', and I return his hand gesture, because let's face it, we Americans are not the world's politest or most accomodating road users.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Low tide?

Not according to the pilot who ditched his aircraft down that way. A bit deeper, by a kilometre or two.

 

[oggbashan]

Many years ago I had a 1950s Hillman Minx which had a speedometer marked in Miles per hour, and in smaller digits, Kilometers. That was useful for driving in France without having to do a conversion in my head for all speed limits (divide my speed by five, multiply by eight). But 60 mph = 100 kph - useful, or half that 30 mph = 50 kph. The speed limit through French villages of 20 kph seemed impossibly slow as all the locals raced past!

But giving way to the right even for minor roads or farm tracks took some getting used to. But the French in Nord Pas De Calais were used to mad English drivers and usually accepted their weird behavior.

Later I had a Fiat as my company car. That had a digital dashboard that could be switched instantly from Imperial to Metric, which was great until it just went completely blank and refused to register anything. In one year of use, I had three new dashboard instruments.

I made a mistake with a current car. I was on an autoroute with a speed limit of 130 kph. I fluffed the conversion from mph to kph and was doing 120 mph = 200 kph. I noticed before I passed a speed camera.

 

[8letters]

What is central to the story - being in Newcastle, how she makes money, or the uni?

What is central to the story is that she has had too many frustrations in her life and just quits for a while. She's the daughter of a high-level government bureaucrat and was spoiled rotten. She was very frustrated when her parents moved her from London to Newcastle, and not being able to go to Uni for Music was the last straw. She moves out of her parents' house and then spends her days doing nothing. She does the bare minimum to get by and no more. And then she meets a guy and becomes embarrassed that she's wasting her life. She decides to get back on the track she knows she should be on, even if it isn't the track of her dreams.

So being in Newcastle is not central - it could be anyplace in England not London. It really could be any country that provides good enough unemployment benefits to young people fresh out of school for the main character to float for a few years. Maybe that was England at one point but is no more. And it doesn't have to be Uni - it could be starting a good career. Something that would fit the daughter of a high-level government bureaucrat.

Fair enough. I guess you enjoy the research as part of your writing process - it would be far too much bother for me. Good luck with it .

With "My European Summer Vacation", the story idea only worked if the beginning of the story happened in another country besides the US. And I thought it was a great story idea. So I was willing to do the research to turn a great story idea into a great story. The US doesn't provide any benefits to young people once you graduate from high school - you're on your own. The story has to be set in another country. So if I want to write the story, I have to be willing to do the research.

I think after all that in this lil off topic convo, with gcse's and neets, after a few months in somebodies trailer(caravan), she said fuck it, hoped on the next thing steaming, went to america to dance at a strip club and suck dick on the BangBus. Because even if she doesn't make it; the impoverished life of a high school drop out with possible chance of getting a ged, sounds much easier to live over here.

The life of a sex worker wouldn't appeal to the character I'm thinking of.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

The Perth one could be a e/w typo...?

I read a fair bit of fanfic and the worst errors usually come along with what sound like American teenage girl speech patterns ("Anyways, are we dating now?" said no Brit ever, especially not James Bond...) and an obsession with blueberry pancakes or worse, something called blueberry scones.

We do still use lots of Imperial measurements but foreigners often get the wrong ones. People over 70 would still give temperatures in Fahrenheit, someone under 50 wouldn't though they'd understand it. Pretty much everyone still gives height in feet and inches (and bra sizes are inches, too) and distances for driving are in miles, for running usually in k. Cooking is by weight not volume but either imperial or metric. Pints are 20oz not 16 - a shock to many a student from America thinking he can down more pints than the Brits.

People expecting table service in pubs or asking for the bill (better than 'check' but still wrong), worrying about 'fraternizarion policies' at work - I'm guessing this must exist in America but the idea of a ban on relationships set by an employer is totally alien, and most of all, not realising the density of cities like London. You get authors giving characters houses in z2 fairly-central London (just about plausible) with garages (I'm raising eyebrows) who drive to work in central London (er, no) and then, the absolute deal-breaker, choose to drive to a restaurant in Soho...

It depends on the job and their policies and it's based on work distractions and nepotism for the most part. like say I started dating an employee and we spent a lot of time not working and maybe some on the job sexual things, would be an issue. Or when we broke up and one of us wanted to be petty towards the other, messing up the job. Were I work now two of the managers and their boyfriends worked together. One of them quit last year, though. Me and a certain ex of mine worked for a catering company and then a club, she dumped me while we worked at the club. The rule UPS had(might still do) is couples can't work in the same position or same crew. When I worked there I worked on the ramp at the airport, if I started dating somebody on my crew, one of us would either need to move to another crew, or if that didn't work; move to another position all together. I was on what was called a belly crew; we loaded and unloaded the lower cargo holds on the ramps(basically off runway parking for planes), and there were top side crews that loaded and unloaded cargo from the upper side of the plane, where there would be passengers on a typical jet airliner.

 

[AvroAnsonXIX]

Worrying about 'fraternizarion policies' at work - I'm guessing this must exist in America but the idea of a ban on relationships set by an employer is totally alien...

I graduated from an (all girls) school at 16, sat for exams at 19. Got some blokes that I knew (in the Biblical sense of the word) from Uni to buy some capital equipment from some other blokes that I grew up with and we hired my dad and cousins to convert it for a similar but different use (they had experience and did this sort of thing professionally).

My mates and I were all a bunch of randy fuck-buddies and I hired them to operate the equipment. I contracted "Zane," an old friend of my mom and dad's to support the business logistically. I invited him to one of our frequent company "employee bonding retreats," -- aka orgies in the desert -- and we spent the next thirty-five plus years together in a wonderfully non-monogamous relationship.

I believe that since founding that first business every single one of my lovers has been an investor, employee, boss, competitor in the same field as, or outside vendor to my business ventures. It's funny, I was exchanging PMs with someone recently who asked me a question about retirement.

I could have retired decades ago. Beyond my children and grandchildren -- most of whom work for me or in the field -- I live and breathe the business. I play around writing at Lit during down time at work when I have to be here but have nothing constructive to do.

Fraternizarion policies? What in the bloody hell is a fraternizarion policy?

 

[SimonDoom]

With "My European Summer Vacation", the story idea only worked if the beginning of the story happened in another country besides the US. And I thought it was a great story idea. So I was willing to do the research to turn a great story idea into a great story. The US doesn't provide any benefits to young people once you graduate from high school - you're on your own. The story has to be set in another country. So if I want to write the story, I have to be willing to do the research.


.

I think it's great you did that. Obviously, it worked. That story has been hugely successful in every way. I haven't done anything that ambitious yet, in terms of the setting or subject matter.

"Write what you know" is a sometimes misunderstood concept. It doesn't mean you shouldn't take risks with writing stories about subjects or places or people you don't know much about it. It means you should draw upon your life experience and knowledge to invest your story with authenticity, whatever the setting.

 

[oggbashan]

In the UK civil service in the early 1960s, long before office sexual harassment was seen as an issue, having sex with an office junior, was seen as an offence that could lead to a reprimand. Same grade level, different offices? OK. Higher and lower ranks, particularly if one was the other's supervisor? No.

The usual response was a quiet word that one should be careful. Being engaged? OK, as long as the relationship was outside office hours.

But office affairs were unwise unless there was real commitment. One night stands? No.

Office Christmas parties could be a minefield particularly if there were many young people and too much alcohol.

 

[AvroAnsonXIX]

The funniest one I read (well, had it read out to me) was the (definitely not Australian) writer who had someone driving five hundred miles to their ranch west of Perth. Good luck with that!

500 miles is a bit far, but sometimes businesses fudge reality to fit their operational scheme. Airlines (WA) Ltd served Yinnetharra, Yalgoo, Meekatharra, Nullagine, Hedland, and Broome on the "North-West Service." Not one of those places is ordinally NW of Maylands, but Airlines also had E, NE and N services. Those "least-east" were deemed by management to be "west."

 

[Kumquatqueen]

In the UK civil service in the early 1960s, long before office sexual harassment was seen as an issue..
.

I believe current policy is that partners shouldn't be in the same management chain, and it is preferable not to be in the same team - managed moves can be requested. The Fast Stream is practically a dating service. My first post in 2000 I was impressed by the level of HR attention my officemates and I got. Turned out the Head of Division was shagging the HR rep and had been for years - but it fizzled out once HoDs were forced into open plan, not their own offices!

I recall IBM having some policy against looking couply in the office, but bosses said to ignore it unless you went over to an American office.

In contrast, scientists are notorious for shagging each other. I understand a couple hundred quid changed hands when I completed my PhD still partnered with the guy Id started with...

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I believe current policy is that partners shouldn't be in the same management chain, and it is preferable not to be in the same team - managed moves can be requested. The Fast Stream is practically a dating service. My first post in 2000 I was impressed by the level of HR attention my officemates and I got. Turned out the Head of Division was shagging the HR rep and had been for years - but it fizzled out once HoDs were forced into open plan, not their own offices!

I recall IBM having some policy against looking couply in the office, but bosses said to ignore it unless you went over to an American office.

In contrast, scientists are notorious for shagging each other. I understand a couple hundred quid changed hands when I completed my PhD still partnered with the guy Id started with...

One of the reasons I first left the hospital in Oxford was because the senior consultants and Registrars considered the juniors their own personal Totty pick-n-mix and subtle (and not-so subtle) pressure was piled on to put out or find your performance reviews scraping along at rock-bottom. I refused to play, I was a happily married woman and there was no way I was selling myself to those creepy fuckers just to keep my clinical reviews in the range I knew I'd earned.

My direct report in particular was the worst; he used to constantly touch me, you know the routine, hand on the shoulder or in the small of my back, or brushing my hands, or lingering his fingertips on mine when he passed me paperwork, all the usual creeper stuff, and scary; he was a big man, and I'm only 5', and it went from 'casual' touching to rubbing himself against me as he passed me in tight spaces.

I put in a formal complaint to the Clinical Operations Director but that never went anywhere, and a second formal complaint, to the Board of Regents, a bunch of dried up old gargoyles and mummies who disapproved of women in general, and in the workplace at a fundamental level, was dismissed so again fuck-head got let off and I got short shrift, except a warning from the Board that they didn't take to kindly to tattle-tales and troublemakers.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Many years ago I had a 1950s Hillman Minx which had a speedometer marked in Miles per hour, and in smaller digits, Kilometers. That was useful for driving in France without having to do a conversion in my head for all speed limits (divide my speed by five, multiply by eight). But 60 mph = 100 kph - useful, or half that 30 mph = 50 kph. The speed limit through French villages of 20 kph seemed impossibly slow as all the locals raced past!
.
.
.
I made a mistake with a current car. I was on an autoroute with a speed limit of 130 kph. I fluffed the conversion from mph to kph and was doing 120 mph = 200 kph. I noticed before I passed a speed camera.

Once upon a time, many long years ago my dad broke his arm crank starting a T-model Ford. We lived in what was a rural area, and the ambulance was a long way away. Dad decided to drive to the hospital in our 1971 Ford Falcon GS sedan. Bright orange, sports pack, 4 speed, 170 hp 6 cylinder. It was a pretty quick family car. I went with him. I was about 15 at the time.

After X-rays and plaster, he was sent home. Instead of calling mum, he asked me to drive. It took me - oh, about 2 nanoseconds to say yes.

I got onto the highway and gently sped up, making sure I stayed below 35 mph. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but it was all going really slow. Dad, who had started going into shock, was saying “Back off, too fast, back off.”

As I howled past the local Police station, I looked again and realised I was nudging 3500 rpm - about 80 in a 35mph zone.

Lucky it was late on a Sunday, and the cops were off getting their fish and chips.

Good fun...

 

[Handley_Page]

Once upon a time, many long years ago my dad broke his arm crank starting a T-model Ford. We lived in what was a rural area, and the ambulance was a long way away. Dad decided to drive to the hospital in our 1971 Ford Falcon GS sedan. Bright orange, sports pack, 4 speed, 170 hp 6 cylinder. It was a pretty quick family car. I went with him. I was about 15 at the time.

After X-rays and plaster, he was sent home. Instead of calling mum, he asked me to drive. It took me - oh, about 2 nanoseconds to say yes.

I got onto the highway and gently sped up, making sure I stayed below 35 mph. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but it was all going really slow. Dad, who had started going into shock, was saying “Back off, too fast, back off.”

As I howled past the local Police station, I looked again and realised I was nudging 3500 rpm - about 80 in a 35mph zone.

Lucky it was late on a Sunday, and the cops were off getting their fish and chips.

Good fun...

I can sympathize with that.
I find I often have to look twice at RPM.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I can sympathize with that.
I find I often have to look twice at RPM.

I got a speeding ticket on the A449 outside Much Marcle (en-route from Ross on Wye) on the way up to Great Malvern; the sneaky Highways Agency bastards had a 40-limit sign going up a rise, and the other side as you crested the rise was marked 30, with a speed camera right there, the underhanded, sneaky bastards. I got a £65 fine and a day in Traffic School for that, it was either that or take the £30 fine and have 3 points on my license. No more do I believe anything the speed markers tell me, so many of them, especially in the West Midlands, are just revenue traps

 

[Bramblethorn]

It depends on the job and their policies and it's based on work distractions and nepotism for the most part.

Those, and collusion/malfeasance. If the person who signs off on my expense reports is also my lover, there's obvious potential for fraud.

I've never encountered non-fraternisation policies at work and I don't think they'd be legal in Australia ("relationship status" is a protected attribute) but employees can mandate disclosure and shuffle staff around to avoid conflicts of interest. There are quite a few married couples where I work, but none of them share teams.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

.....

 

[Nellymcboatface]

.....

Lori : Your experience with creeps in the workplace... thankfully when I've seen it in Industry it has been dealt with - I've seen a Director sacked for inappropriate advances on a younger receptionist...
In 2019 I was in a large office in Reading and one cockney style Londoner loved making the women uncomfortable with his lewd jokes... after one lunch time beer, three of us contractors had a word with the boss as the one young lady was in tears sat in her car as a result of his advances..
He was gone within the hour after the threat of a call to the police and he didn't get paid notice.

Measurements - I feel your pain, I can't do Fareinheight...
My Gran used to ask for an `inch' of cheese at the deli counter...
But I will use inches in carpentry measurements and mm in my job.

I did some work in New York and was emphatically told Americans understand the metric system. We made a lucrative trade in metric tapes whenever we travelled there, I think I sold nigh on 50 for profit.... And yet they would all go missing and still mm were misinterpreted as Inches...
Worse still the Architects would post dimensions as fractions and neither US or UK could get to grips with their abbreviations.

Nelly

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Lori : Your experience with creeps in the workplace... thankfully when I've seen it in Industry it has been dealt with - I've seen a Director sacked for inappropriate advances on a younger receptionist...
In 2019 I was in a large office in Reading and one cockney style Londoner loved making the women uncomfortable with his lewd jokes... after one lunch time beer, three of us contractors had a word with the boss as the one young lady was in tears sat in her car as a result of his advances..
He was gone within the hour after the threat of a call to the police and he didn't get paid notice.

Measurements - I feel your pain, I can't do Fareinheight...
My Gran used to ask for an `inch' of cheese at the deli counter...
But I will use inches in carpentry measurements and mm in my job.

I did some work in New York and was emphatically told Americans understand the metric system. We made a lucrative trade in metric tapes whenever we travelled there, I think I sold nigh on 50 for profit.... And yet they would all go missing and still mm were misinterpreted as Inches...
Worse still the Architects would post dimensions as fractions and neither US or UK could get to grips with their abbreviations.

Nelly

My husband took offense when I asked him what a 'MILF' was, I'd overheard my creeper boss referring to me as one, and telling people that I was his property and no-one was allowed to talk to me without his permission. Will dropped me at work the next day, collared that creep in the parking lot and beat the raggedy Cowboy shit out of him to teach him some manners.

The guy was supposed to be ex-military, and the hospital hired him in the mistaken belief that he was used to enforcing discipline. Of course, in the army, soldiers are required by law to obey every stupid or half-assed command from their superior officers, they go to the stockade if they don't, but in civilian life barking orders at employees usually only ever gets a negative 'f*ck off, asshole, go find some squaddies to scream at, you're not in the army now' response.

After he was given a slap on the wrist by the Board (and after he recovered from the truly soul-shattering kicking he got) he tried to re-establish his dominance over the surgical teams by pushing his way into the weekly clinical review meetings and making inane, pointless comments. I was usually the most senior surgeon present (because the Senior Registrar's never showed up, too busy playing golf) so I normally chaired the meetings, which were case and procedure clinical/surgical reviews and follow-up procedure recommendations and procedural Q&A. Dipshit would suddenly jump in with something totally inapposite, pissing off the real specialists, until I told him that he understood one word in fifty, Cocker Spaniels did better than that, so in future he either chair the reviews and make life-altering decisions and live with the consequences like we had to, or he could shut the hell up, stay away, and quit pissing me off.

I eventually decided I couldn't deal with the NHS Trustees and their little misogynistic clique anymore and moved to Child Therapeutic and Counselling Services in the adjoining NHS Trust, North Oxfordshire.

 

[Handley_Page]

I got a speeding ticket on the A449 outside Much Marcle (en-route from Ross on Wye) on the way up to Great Malvern; the sneaky Highways Agency bastards had a 40-limit sign going up a rise, and the other side as you crested the rise was marked 30, with a speed camera right there, the underhanded, sneaky bastards. I got a £65 fine and a day in Traffic School for that, it was either that or take the £30 fine and have 3 points on my license. No more do I believe anything the speed markers tell me, so many of them, especially in the West Midlands, are just revenue traps

How else are they to pay for a counselor's (fact-finding) holiday with his 'secretary', or a new coat of paint in the Offices ?

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

How else are they to pay for a counselor's (fact-finding) holiday with his 'secretary', or a new coat of paint in the Offices ?

To cap it all, they were holding the DVLA traffic school in Market Drayton, not anywhere in Oxfordshire, as one would have expected, given I actually lived in Oxfordshire but no, the nearest Traffic Violation School to where I was ticketed was in Shropshire, 120 bloody miles from my home, so that's where they sent me, nearly a 3 hour drive through some of the worst traffic snarl-ups in England.

 

[AvroAnsonXIX]

Regarding measurement systems, and ones ability to determine nationality from them ...

Professionally, it seems that every measurement system ever devised by man is vying for a place at the table. We buy fuel from the refinery by the demi-barrel. Defined as 5333 1/3 ounces. That's not the same as the 7040 ounce (full) barrels, which are the reusable steel containers we haul that fuel to the interior in.

The aircraft used to fly that fuel burns the same fuel. Its Fuel Flow Gauge indicates in Kilograms per hour. At cruise it should read 35 to 42 depending on our gross weight. The fuel is pumped from the truck to the plane by the 160 ounce gallon, and once onboard the Fuel Quantity Gauge measures it by the 128 ounce gallon. 52 of them are supposedly usable in each wing. That gauge doesn't really matter unless we spring a leak, because it actually reads electrical impedance. Which is terribly inaccurate because impedance varies with temperature as does volume.

To determine how much fuel we have we physically dip the tank with a wooden stick, which is notched in theoretical hours of flight at cruising speed after warm up, takeoff, climb, and a safe reserve are allowed for. Because both the fuel fill and drain sump are in the forward part of the tank -- which is lower than median at flight attitudes but higher than median as the airplane sits on its wheels -- the stick must be inserted slowly, sliding perpendicular to the top of and along the back of the filler neck for an accurate read. Fortunately foreplay is not required for easy insertion.

Fuel pressure as it travels from the booster pump in the tank to the engine is measured in Pounds per square inch, so it's only illogical that we would burn it by the Kilogram, the equivalent of 60 of them each hour at climb. Mixed with air compressed in the supercharger to 44.5 Inches of Mercury it provides 310 Horsepower, and per the Airspeed Indicator moves the aircraft at 108 -- 6075.75 feet to the mile -- Nautical miles per hour as per the Vertical Speed Indicator it climbs four Meters per second to an altitude of 6,000 -- 12 inch to the foot -- feet per the Altimeter.

As I climb I glance at the Oil Pressure and Oil Temperature and Cylinder Head Temperature gauges to ensure the engine is not being overtaxed. Good readings are 75-90 Degrees Celsius at not over 85 Pounds per square inch for the oil and under 425 degrees Fahrenheit in the indicating cylinder.

The freight we haul, some of it is declared by Pound and some by the Kilogram. Measurements in Inches or Centimeters never matter because we gross out before we bulk out. The weight and balance computation table for this Swiss airplane built in Texas USA has us figure our weight in Pounds and our corresponding moment arm in Millimeters aft of datum.