Metric Ton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_ton
One tonne is equivalent to:
- One megagram (exactly);
- megagram is the official SI term, but generally not used in industry or shipping, nor colloquially
- 1000⁄0.453 592 37 pounds (exactly by definition, giving approximately
- 2205 lb (to four significant digits)
- 98.42% of a long ton
- One long ton (2,240 lb) is 101.605% of a tonne
- 110.23% of a short ton
- One short ton (2,000 lb) is 90.72% of a tonne
Everybody got that? Good.
If your hungover brain looks at those numbers and wants to just go back to sleep, the main point is that a metric ton is bigger than the typical American idea of a ton. (AKA a “short” ton. A “long” ton is basically an outdated unit that was more used in the UK and other Commonwealth countries.)
A metric ton is more frequently known as a “tonne,” but those are homophones and thus are indistinguishable when speaking them aloud.
[Side note: I legitimately just typed “homophobes” instead and had to take a moment to figure out why it that looked wrong. The reasons* are irrelevant; I apologize to all units of measure, everywhere, for making such an untrue and pernicious implication against both the tonne and the ton, no matter the spelling.]
Anyway, the point of all this is to make sure that I’m correct in assuming that a “metric shit-ton of [drugs, alcohol, tacos, crap, etc.]” is in fact larger than a “shit-ton of [drugs, alcohol, tacos, crap, etc.].”
Because these are the types of things that really matter to me.
[Addendum: apologies for some technical difficulties* in getting this post up. All is up and running correctly now.]
*hangover
(Source: treehugger.com)
