...the U.S. that is. I have seen the threads about cashiers who cannot make correct change. This is along the same lines only it concerns fractions and tape measures.

ALERT: If you are fractionally challenged and sensitive about it, you should turn away now.

So, I went to my local building materials store to purchase some plantation blinds and I needed them cut to size. I told the guy who was going to do the cutting that the window opening was 34 1/8" and I wanted him to cut the blinds 1/2" narrower than the opening. The blinds had a width of 34 1/2" in the box. "The blinds needed to be cut evenly on each side so as to keep them centered" I added.

The young man opened up the package, measured the blinds, and stared at them...and stared at them...and stared at them."Do you want some help" I asked. "Yes sir, please" was the polite and frank reply.

So I got out my framing pencil and began to scratch out the math-- 34 1/8 less 1/2 is 33 5/8; 34 1/2 less 33 5/8 is 7/8; 7/8 divided by two is 7/16. "So take off 7/16" from each side" I told him. (I was being very gentle with this young man because he was nice and polite-I told him "I do this every day, not everyone gets fractions").

So, he needed to cut each side 7/16". He gets his tape measure out, places it on the end of the blind, and stares...and stares...you get the idea. So I asked him if he wanted me to mark the blinds at 7/16" for him and he quickly said "yes".

While young man "A" was cutting the first set of blinds, somewhat older young man "B" comes over. He apparently was more experienced but had been on break. I gave Mr. "B" the measurements for the second set of blinds and asked him to double check my calculations.

The second set needed to be shortened a total of 2 7/8". Mr. "B" gets out his calculator! It wasn't a framing calculator that will compute fractions, it was a scientific calculator. So he proceded to convert the measurements to decimals, make the calculations and then convert the answer back to inches (he had a chart for the conversion).

"I have bad news" he said, "The amount we need to shorten the blinds is 2 7/8", but that amount is not evenly divisible by two. So we will have to cut 1 3/8" on one side and 1 4/8" on the other side."

"What do you mean 2 7/8" can't be divided evenly, its 1 7/16" per side," I responded.

"Oh, well we can't do it that way," Mr. B said, "See, look at my tape measure."

Knowing the limitations of their employees, the management of the building materials store had provided them with tape measures that had the fractional inches printed on the tape in 1/8" increments. So 1/8" increments were as close as the employees could calculate. My measurement, 1 7/16" wasn't displayed, so it wasn't a possibility.

Don't get me wrong, 1/8" on one side or the other will not be noticeable on the blinds. I proceeded to jokingly harass the guys a little- as is my way--and let them finish up the cuts.

Maybe I'm just expecting too much.

I gave your post a "like" but the guys' blind pig-ignorance made me want to cry.
I could recite many similar instances, including encounters with post year 2000 degreed engineers, but it would weary me and frighten the readers here.

Could be dyslexic

Should have converted measurements to metric, LOL

This is not new. I worked in the printing industry for decades, and it's a very ruler dependent occupation.

I started having to give prospective employees a "ruler test". Nothing hard, just five lines to measure with nothing smaller than 8th's in the answer.

It was difficult to find somebody that got a perfect score. Flunking did not disqualify you. The test was used as a teachable moment. If you weren't teachable, then you were disqualified.

The bindery ladies were funny. They couldn't convert fractions to decimals. The new paper cutters were all in 10th's because they had digital controllers. They wanted to use a conversion chart. I refused, and taught them how to do it instead. Once they realized how easy it was they were good. But that first week they wanted approval on everything. A couple of weeks later they had it all memorized.

We rarely use cash for anything so we don't really need people to count change.

This country's present woes lie much deeper than the English Imperial tape measure.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

All I heard was America being dragged screaming and kicking nearer to metric measure.

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Release the Kraken

An English Pound is $1.21 while an English stone is 14 pounds. Go figure, eh wot?

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

It isn't just a US problem!

I have an Evangelist friend in Australia, born and raised on the English Standard system in the late 1970's or early 1980's the whole country was turned Metric. Standard fractional tape measurers and framing squares were illegal to sell or use in all of Australia! While he was in the US for a year long sabbatical, he purchased a case (144) of Stanley 1" by 25' Carpenters tape measurers. I think he paid $7 US or about $9.10 AUS. He said the black-market value at the time was $50AUS, so he would quadruple his investment! While the standard tapes were a minor solution, the real problem was their education system didn't give them the math skills to add or convert decimals/metric, they didn't understand the adding of fractions in the 1/16ths either!

My own children went to a private school and learned math at very much higher levels, but their abilities to add or subtract fractions was lacking. My oldest and youngest sons worked as carpenter's helpers and were taught "Fractional Thinking" by old time carpenters. The boys are men now but not carpenters, and still can do fractioned inches faster than most people can do decimals! (one is a helicopter mechanic, the younger is an Industrial Designer and works with a lot of carpenters/woodworkers)

Ivan

I have fun telling these kids at the counter what my change is going to be before they can punch it into their computerized cash register. I've had a couple ask me, "How did you do that?" I told them when I went to school, high tech was a slide rule and a mechanical pencil.
"What's a slide rule?" End of conversation.

The popular worn out phrase from the "pre-woke" days that has survived and flourished is the reference to the "haves" and the "have nots", intimating nefarious plots and schemes abound to keep segments of the populations of the world poor so they might be more easily "controlled". All I know is when that whine starts in this country, it gives me heart burn. A free, quality education has been available in this country for numerous decades and there is more true ignorance now than almost anytime in my lifetime, in my opinion.

Myriads of examples from all races and all walks of life have succeeded and thrived with the freedom and opportunity afforded them by this nation. But cultural plagues of attitudes do more to keep people down than any organized plot. When parents don't value education, don't strive to push their children to excel and look for opportunities - when it's easier to make excuses about the government or whomever not providing enough money because what is desired is equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity - then yeah - we're in trouble and have been for some time.

I can state plainly and with no reservation that any man or woman of any color, nationality, or background could have had the same jobs/opportunities as I had if they had simply applied themselves. Maybe in some parts of the country that isn't so, but it's not in my personal experience. And I live and have always lived in the "depressed area" of Appalachia. I wound up in a professional field without completing my college education and made a decent living for almost 50 years by accepting responsibility for me and mine, showing up everyday and doing what was required of me by my employers. I didn't have an "in" or a "leg up" - I worked and didn't expect anyone to give me anything.
But my main advantage was I had parents who told me I could accomplish whatever I wished if I was willing to work for it - who threatened me with tangible consequences for slacking or not putting forth the necessary effort. I was taught that when a wall was thrown up in my path I either went over it, under it or through it - quitting wasn't an option.

When someone gives up because of their social circumstance, where they live, or whatever crutch they cling to they are to be pitied. But modern society is allowing failure on a grand scale for the sake of 'wokeness' or whatever you want to call the attitude that some people just need to be taken care of 'cause they're not up to doing it themselves. There are always the lame, the infirm, the mentally troubled and folks that for whatever reason will always need a safety net - but in reality it's not nearly as many that's riding the gravy train and making excuses these days.
Sooner or later it always seems to be necessary for those lessons to be relearned on a scale of misery that makes the history books. And when those times come, the misery isn't particular about who it washes over in the aftermath.

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Qui plantavit curabit

Including measurements in points, picas and ciceros Somewhere I think I still have a printer's rule with those on it.

As to "going metric", we went through that here in Canada, the changeover happening I think about when I graduated from university in 1975. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess, but being in "rather close proximity" to the US, in effect we've been running metric and fractional in parallel. I can manage in both systems fairly well even though I've never actually had to use metric and prefer fractional for most stuff.

As to the original post, "We're in trouble..." I've heard this repeatedly from my gf, who teaches biology & genetics at university. Many of her students are illiterate and innumerate.
("3 squared is 9" etc.) Aaarrrghhhhh......

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

I was in business for myself most of my adult life and had 18 employees. My business required that all employees could read a tape measure with ease and accuracy. Finding people who could do that was not an easy task - and that was 13 years ago when I retired and sold my business! I can only imagine that it is even more difficult today.

I have also noticed that many restaurants now have tip guides printed right on the dinner check in increments such as 18%, 20%, 25% (with the dollar amount posted) as suggested tips. To me that means they feel people can no longer figure out the tip without their cheat sheet.

I don't understand how HS Mathematics teachers sleep at night knowing they are relegated to advance students who really have not satisfied the requirements of the class they just completed but the teachers must pass them to move them along. Disgraceful! We are headed back to the stone age!

But it is a worrisome manifestation of how our education system sucks more and more each year.

Think of the fun I had with land measurements in links, chains and perches.

It is true that America has lost academic standing among other countries and my optimism for what we are turning out is dimming. However those that are currently steering this academic ship are not fresh out of high school and have priorities other than raising scholastic standards. It is a worrisome time indeed.

While I know most folks aren't in a position to do so but all my grandchildren are home schooled and state testing places them well above their age groups. While there are only 5 million kids being currently home schooled the number is rapidly growing.

I still hold out hope.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Get used to it.
Get used to more audits also.
I wonder whether the IRS counts on fingers.... sheesh, our country kaput

Outstanding post, Fred...thanks for your eloquence and spot-on logic.

I know a young man who came here as a teenage refugee from an Asian country about 20 years ago...who didn't speak a word of English and knew nothing about our culture...who today holds one of the most important and responsible jobs in our federal government.

I work with a man who emigrated here from Ghana...met and married an American woman...and has three little boys. In his rich African accent, he regularly proclaims his love for the USA, because here, we are all equal under the law.

My friend John is the son of a German mother and Latvian father, who came here as refugees after WW2. John grew up in Spanish Harlem in New York City, in a tenement...ultimately became a rocket scientist...and had a long and distinguished career as a ballistics engineer for the US Army.

My father was a Depression kid who drove an ice truck at age 14 to help support his disabled parents and his little sister...put himself through Johns Hopkins University...became a chemical engineer...and spent 38 years with the US Navy, where he did design work on nuclear submarines.

It makes my blood boil when anybody whines about how "unfair" our society is, or when somebody complains that this-or-that -ism is the reason they can't get ahead. Our entire history in the USA is of people overcoming odds, and having the freedom to make their own choices...to succeed or fail...to be whatever they want to be. Thanks again for pointing that out...

Having been a High School math teacher for the last 10 years of a 15 year "career" I can't tell you how many time I have observed the "future generation" employing "digital calculators" to feverishly multiply 8X7. Them fingers were counted again and again just to be sure. Understand, I have no problem with any methodology that arrives at the correct answer. But I have heard anything from 1 or 15 or 87 or 9,678. 9 out of 10 times. Forget about "reasonable answer" because that ain't in the curriculum. Fractions might as well be taught in a foreign language, it wouldn't change the outcomes. Joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

I went to a farmers market yesterday and took a neighbor who had never been there before with me. It’s a popular spot and they have about half a dozen employees working the counter. Most of their workers are older women who are really good at their jobs. The kid who cashed us out has been there for years, but he still needs to use a calculator to add up the totals.

The neighbor and I split a dozen ears of corn ($8.50). I also had a bunch of radishes ($3.00) and the neighbor had 2 containers of fresh beets ($3.50/each).

I laid my $7.25 on the counter. The kid wanted to charge my neighbor $14 for her produce. She immigrated to this country about a dozen years ago and still struggles with our language, but she can do simple math.

I stopped him and explained that my stuff ($4.25 for the corn, $3 for the radishes) equals $7.25. Her stuff ($4.25 for the corn, $7 for the beets) comes to $11.25. His eyes glossed over and he got all flustered.

After a few failed attempts on his calculator, I stopped him again and told him to try this:
$8.50 (corn)
+$3.00 (radishes)
+$7.00 (beets)
=$18.50

$18.50 (total)
-$7.25 (my total)
=$11.25 (her total)

After a few more tries running the numbers, he finally agreed with me and we were on our way. You’d think this high level math problem involved two trains converging on the the same track at different speeds!

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"I also cook."

It's impressive how many people know that an ounce is 28.35 grams and an eight ball is 3.5 grams, though . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

There is a chain of very popular Chinese "take and go" restaurants in this region that does not take cash or checks for reasons cited above. Go through the line, select your food, use your card to pay, and go.

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John

It's not just making change, either. I bought something the other day, and the register told the teenage cashier my change was 36 cents. He has a drawer full of change - all denominations - and he gives me three dimes and six pennies. Ugh.

There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator.
It's amazing how many people don't get this.
Similar to if 666 is totally evil, then 25.80697580112788 is the root of all evil....crickets....

They are NOT Math Challenged!
They are Math IGNORANT!

Clerk calculating cost of each for a price match:
Competitors AD was " 3 for $3 "
Clerk calculated several times and finally said - "that is $1 each".


We put a men on the moon using slide rules and pencils.
Forgot to include the Mechanical Calculators w hich could Add / Subtract / Multiply / Divide

Today many can not correctly calculate sale total and/or correct change even using a calculator.

I credit my Mental Math skills to many years of using a slide rule.
Slide rule would yield an answer with out a decimal point e.g 327
Slide rule users, of ancient times, would Mentally Calculate an APPROXIMATE ANSWER.
Their approximations were usually within ten percent of the EXACT answer.
They would then know that the 327 was 3.27 and not 32.7, .327, or 327.

Wonder how many forum members:
1) Every used a Slide Rule.
2) Still have a Slide Rule.
3) Have used a Slide Rule in the last year.

Also remember the Decimal/Fractional conversion labels stuck on or T-Squares in drafting class.

Recent Mental Math when buying Smoke Sausage for Soup Kitchen butcher asked me.
How many pounds will the 40 packages of 14 ounce Smoked Sausage equal?
No calculator, no Slide Rule, no Pencil - 35 Pounds


Bekeart

Just be glad precision measurements didn't have to be done in Russia - the arshin* is about .777 of a yard. Go figure!

John

* the length of the average man's stride in the time of Peter the Great... Mosin-Nagant rifle sights used in WWII were calibrated in arshins.

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Thomas Jefferson, in 1790 put forth a proposal to the US congress to examine if the US should convert to the metric system. They have been "studying" ever since.

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Bill

As the old saying goes, "Close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

My gf tries to point out to her students the importance of having some mental idea of what the right answer is, so if you make a mistake on the calculator on your phone, you can look at it and say, "Whoa! That can't be right!" and redo the calculation. Also the importance of the location of the decimal point; especially in making up dilutions.

One day in class she told her students to do calculations w/o their phones. A look of terror passed over their faces and several nearly fainted.

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

Reading post 25........I've still got my slide rule, I doubt there's still a T square in the US that's not in a museum. I expect CAD pretty much killed the practice of hand drafting. Work site scribbles excepted.

I gotta ask: what's a perch? Besides a fish.

The change thing has only become noticeable because of new fancy registers. Back in the day, the registers didn't calculate change, the checkout clerk had to do it. If you couldn't do sufficient mental arithmetic to make change, you got to stock shelves and mop floors instead. Now with fancy registers any dummy can work the checkout.

The math challenged thing is hardly new. In my high school days in the 70s our class had to be divided so 70% of them could take the lower rated math exam at 16.

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Release the Kraken

Went to a just opened Dunkin Donuts. Placed my order and paid my total.
The guy at the window gave me to much change back. I gave it back and said you gave me to much change. He tried again and again gave me to much change. I said you only owe me $2.63. His reply was he can’t count coin change. He handed me 2 dollars and a bunch of coins. Said just take this please there is a bunch of cars behind you. I counted out my change and insisted he take back the rest. By then his manager came to the window questioning was there a problem. I replied the register tells this young man the amount of change I should receive. But Dunkin Donuts need another machine to count it out for him.

Happens with getting change back from sales. If you have a bill just over $15 and you give them a 20 and a 1 to get a 10 or at the least 2 fives they stare at you like you are on drugs, especially if they had already used the quick key for a 20.

Also, whatever you do, do not use cursive. You might as well be writing in a foreign language.

A complicated and often messed up character herself, it doesn't negate the truths that she put forth . . .



As true and more obvious today than it was 65 years ago.

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Qui plantavit curabit

This is the main determinant. Good parents. Parents who teach their children the basic values by raising them in an environment, a household, where basic values are a matter of course.

If a person does not have this advantage growing up, it's highly unlikely that as a parent he/she will pass on the basic values to their own children. If you're not raised with basic values ingrained, it's near impossible to understand them, much less teach them to your children.

One of the things that gives me great pleasure in life is watching my oldest son and his wife raise my grandchildren. When I see what a great father and husband my son is — I think he is better at it than I was — I feel fulfilled.

Knew it was surveying term - googled.
1 perch, pole or rod is 5½ yards - current US usage.
(Three different words to define the same length.)
I have never seen perches in a deed, but have only read deeds from Illinois and Kentucky.

Have cases where Realtor's could not accurately determine/list correct acreage of a property
using the metes and bounds description detailed in the recorded deed.
Not every deed includes the phrase "containing XY.Z acres".
"Containing XY.Z acres more or less" appears in farm land deeds for plots defined by fractional portions of a Section.
Not all sections are exactly 640 acres.

SW1/4NW1/4, SEC 26, T17N, R2W, WM is a common description of that 40 Acre parcel.
The same description can be written out as:
The SW1/4 of the NW1/4 of Section 26, Township 17 North, Range 3 West, Willamette
Meridian


Bekeart

The bottom line for your telling post is that genuine self-esteem and respect is earned, not given.
That idea has been poison in our schools for perhaps two generations, with social promotion and participation trophies give in place of earned honors, and the result is the innumeracy and illiteracy rampant in high school - even university - so-called "graduates."
The problem is way, way beyond reading a tape measure.

Maybe I have misread your post, but $21.00 - 15.00 = $6. I too wonder how you would get a ten or two fives back...Maybe a 5 and some change?

Yes I still have my slide rule, hair is broken, "T" square and mechanical drawing set. I don't think I've used them in half a century. 4 function calculator with square root was a blessing back in the day.

I really enjoy those that can't use the correct your, you're, their, there or they're either.

Something about living in glass houses and throwing rocks comes to mind.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Silly me...I would have just told the guy how much I wanted to cut off of each end. Or dare I say it...use it as a teachable moment. I just don't have the desire to embarrass home center employees by demonstrating my mathematical genius.

Years ago McDonalds was toying with a new hamburger the 1/3 pounder. Supposedly the idea was shelved when it was determined that many people didn’t know which was larger 1/3lb. or 1/4lb.

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I told you not to use Lifebuoy

When I was a pup, all newspaper boys learned to make correct change. A silvery plated, steel device was carried on their pants belt. It had tubes/columns, that held, pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, with a dispensing lever on each tube. Change could be made using one hand only. Those devices could, and often did, cause embarrassment, when they; grew heavy with change; and caused one’s pants to drop, and moon the public.

Chubbo

Been there.... and subjected to that!!!!!!!!

My dad could start fires with a slip stick. In high school I used one to plod through calculations. When I started college I grabbed the first TI SR-52 I could find.

How many here use an abacus?

Any one remember this?

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

A coworker of mine used to be a HS teacher. He couldn't sleep at night, so he quit and got a job in a factory. The straw that broke the camel's back was when the principal forced him to pass a student who could neither read nor write. Apparently, the kid's parents had been threatening teachers for many years.

In my local area, there is now a teacher crisis. Nobody wants that job any more. Wonder why?

From the head of a large retail company in the UK. She says the young are dumb and will the old please come back to work.

John Lewis boss says young staff lack basic numeracy skills - BBC News

John Lewis boss: Over-50s quitting the workforce fuels inflation - BBC News

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Release the Kraken

My Dad went to a trade school to be a printer. On December 8th, 1941 he quit high school at age 16 to take a job in the printing industry. Just after turning 18 he enlisted in the Navy. After the war he returned to his job and ultimately retired from that company many years later. Although a "typesetter" all along, in the 1970's his company went digital and Dad was in charge of all of the computers.

Great Grandpa died at a relatively young age. Grandpa was in the 8th grade at the time and he also quit school early to provide for the family. He turned out to be a carpenter, and I can assure you he could read a tape measure.....LOL.

So, there you have it. Even though edumacation ain't all its cracked up today, even if you have only minimal book learnin' you can go far. All it takes is the will to learn, and enough smarts to realize what's important.

What really gripes me is when youngins make smart remarks about us boomers and ask if we know how to use a 'puter, when WE were the ones that designed them in the first place. I always tell them that I was writing code before they were born, and likely before their mothers were born...

In the now infamous, immortal words of my 8th grade algebra teacher, as we reviewed the previous night’s homework, which consisted of multiple, repetitive, mind numbing routine calculations . . .

“You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket . . . “

As social media describes it, that didn’t age well . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

You mean the parental practice of bring home a D you get a spanking. Bring home an F you got a "whooping". Is no longer being used. I have 2 older brothers,5 and 7 years. They were smart but just gearheads. Enjoyed pranks, being popular and anything with cars, cycles etc. I watched them make many a trip to the shed when report cards came out. Needless to say I was motivated to keep at least a C average, still pulled pranks drove stupid and tried to be popular. Jist skipped the trips to the shed for grades. Went there for plenty of other stuff.

My brothers (grown and out on their own now) got a big laugh when I complained about getting one for being 30 minutes late getting home. Made the big mistake of telling Dad reason I was late was Police stopped me for having 8 or 9 friends in my Datsun. My bros both shook their heads,, man kid you are stoopid...

Oh sorry, I was looking for the pet peeve thread. My apologies.

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Sure you did

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Music/Sports/Beer fan