18

Would Americans say:

He sat down 9 feet from me.

or

He sat down 3 yards from me.

?

Void
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user140203
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    If the speaker was going to use *feet, he'd almost certainly round it up* to *...ten feet/foot from me* (or *a dozen*). But with *yards, he'd probably round down* to *...a couple of yards from me* (or *a few*). In such contexts, excessive precision means little, and tends to look odd. – FumbleFingers Jul 27 '21 at 14:41
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    How do you know a modern American wouldn't say 'three metres'? – Michael Harvey Jul 27 '21 at 15:43
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    @Kirt: Even most (former) military and scientists (and I'm both) only use metric in work contexts, or a few others like the size of wrenches you use to work on your car. Elsewhere we use the much more human-scaled everyday units. – jamesqf Jul 28 '21 at 04:56
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    If I were gonna say “3 yards” I’m pretty sure I’d actually say “a few yards”. – Tim Jul 28 '21 at 10:01
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    "five paces yonder" – PatrickT Jul 28 '21 at 10:06
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    3 feet, 5 feet, 10 feet, 15 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, 50 feet, 75 feet, 100 feet, 50 yards... or something like that – Matt Timmermans Jul 28 '21 at 12:45
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    @Mari-LouA: In the US, a “cup” is a standardized unit of volume equal to 8 fluid ounces, where a fluid ounce is defined as 231/128 in³ (29.5735295625 mL) when referring to the contents of a container, or 30 mL exactly when referring to the serving size on the nutrition label. The number of grams depends on the density of the ingredient. – dan04 Jul 28 '21 at 19:12
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    In any case, sit and sit down are not the same thing. Which do you mean? [re the meters: I spell it meters when writing for a US audience.] – Lambie Jul 28 '21 at 19:36
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    @RonJohn The American spelling of "liters" always looks to me as if it's pronounced "lighters". Only "litres" looks like "leeters" to me. – CJ Dennis Jul 29 '21 at 00:07
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    @CJDennis "litres" looks like "litters" to me... :) – RonJohn Jul 29 '21 at 02:48
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    'Meter' is the act of measurement (hence ohmmeter, multimeter), metre is the unit. Unlike some countries, God is clever enough to deal with homonyms ... Cups are metric, too (1c = 250g/250mL). @jamesqf what the heck is 'human scaled'? :-D. Imperial measurements are arbitrary - the human in question is whichever king decided the distance from his elbow to his extended middle finger was a 'cubit' – mcalex Jul 29 '21 at 03:45
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    @DawoodibnKareem Americans absolutely use meters. Just not for everyday life. Anything remotely technical will inevitably use metric. I guess we just didn't feel like it was either necessary or worth the cost/effort to change the rest over. And for what it's worth, the US customary system (us does NOT use the imperial system) is legally defined in metric units. – PC Luddite Jul 29 '21 at 04:04
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    @mcalex Metric is also completely arbitrary, it just doesn't take as much to memorise. – CJ Dennis Jul 29 '21 at 05:29
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    @PCLuddite indeed your gallons are smaller than Imperial, so your cars use a lot more of them (although that's not the only reason). – Weather Vane Jul 29 '21 at 07:00
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    @dan04 I think Mari-LouA knows that cup is a standardised unit in the US, but the trouble is that it's also a standardised unit in the UK with a different volume! So if you're following a recipe you have to look up the provenance of it & see if the person is using US fluid ounces or imperial fluid ounces. At least with grams & mililitres you know where you stand :) – anotherdave Jul 29 '21 at 07:09
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    At leat "meter" matches the spellings used in German "Meter" (and Dutch), but "metre" is closer to the "original" French "mètre". The Russian "метр" is on the fence and the Spanish "metro" is considered a means of transport elsewhere. Perhaps we should ask Liberia and Myanmar for their opinions ... – Hagen von Eitzen Jul 29 '21 at 07:11
  • Feet is more common, unless you're playing football -- that is American football -- as opposed to soccer. And horse racing uses furlongs and 'lengths', etc. – JosephDoggie Jul 29 '21 at 12:10
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    @HagenvonEitzen "metro" is also a form of transport here in Spain :) – Aaron F Jul 29 '21 at 13:08
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    "He sat about 10 feet away" would be what Americans would say. – Issel Jul 29 '21 at 22:56
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    @mcalex: Wrong! It's just US vs British spelling, where US almost always uses 'er' at the end of a word, where the British use 're'. No different from US 'or' vs British 'our', to take a common example. – jamesqf Jul 30 '21 at 02:32
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    @JosephDoggie: Length is not a standard distance, though, but approximated by the size of the horses. (Or cars, or whatever you're racing.) And the cup may be a standardized unit in the US, but not when you're buying coffeemakers and such, where the coffeemaker's cup is about 1/2 of a standard cup - or the cups most people drink from. – jamesqf Jul 30 '21 at 02:35
  • @CJDennis arbitrary? perhaps the choice of what was used for the measurement, but the metric system is based on the natural world, not the current ruler's dimensions. @ jamesqf Apart from the first word, I don't disagree with anything you said, but when the first US dictionary guy deliberately spells words differently to the language origin - even accusing the English of corrupting the English language(???) - then it's not me that's wrong. :-) – mcalex Jul 30 '21 at 08:05
  • @jamesqf - 'Length is not a standard distance, though, but approximated by the size of the horses'. I'm not sure what you mean there - horse-racing courses in the UK are measured in miles and furlongs (a furlong is 1 8th of a mile; 220 yards) - absolute measures and nothing to do with horses. Unlike the Space Shuttle SRB's of course, the width of which is absolutely to do with the width of a horse's backside. God, I hope that story's true. – Spratty Jul 30 '21 at 11:49
  • @Spratty: I meant length used as a measure of distance, as when it's said that the winning horse won by X lengths, or by a head or nose. Or for another example (perhaps unique to the US) the recommended following distance on the road is one car length for every 10 mph speed. – jamesqf Jul 30 '21 at 20:22
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    @mcalex: This question is specifically about American English. In American English, "meter" is both a noun and a verb, and "metre" is a spelling error. – Kevin Jul 30 '21 at 21:09
  • Can one fathom the difference in using yards vs. feet? Is that twice as hard? – chux - Reinstate Monica Jul 30 '21 at 21:22
  • Americans would say, "Six is one; half a dozen is the other." – Panzercrisis Jul 30 '21 at 21:41
  • @mcalex Why should the world be 40,000,000 m in circumference? That value is purely arbitrary! However, once you've got your first arbitrary value, dividing it and multiplying it by powers of 10 makes it easy for a culture used to thinking in base 10. – CJ Dennis Jul 31 '21 at 13:21
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    @Panzercrisis A search for "Six is one half a dozen is the other" returns results for "Six of one half a dozen of the other". – CJ Dennis Aug 01 '21 at 06:40
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    @jamesqf - my sincere apologies; when I read your comment I somehow thought you meant "length" as in the length of the track. I completely missed the "length-as-in-of-a-horse" meaning, and I can't explain why. Call it a comprehension blind-spot on my part. Now I read your comment again, with hindsight, it makes perfect sense. – Spratty Aug 02 '21 at 11:55
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    A question with 18 upvotes and 100+votes on the answer is closed as 'opinion' based. All supporting information in the answers indicates this is not opinion based. No one uses Yards in the U.S. unless it is for a specific reason. Grow up ELL children. – EllieK Aug 02 '21 at 12:56
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    If this were closed earlier, I'm glad it's reopened. It's one of the cases on this site where even within the same version of English, native speakers' eyes are opened. Personally I had never sat down and thought about this, that I can remember; but seeing the answers basically saying, "Use feet by default, yards by exception," I can tell by experience that they're probably pretty accurate. As a native AmE speaker, my eyes were opened, and so were those of probably some other native speakers. – Panzercrisis Aug 03 '21 at 13:17
  • As for the phrase I mentioned above - "Six is one; half a dozen is the other." - maybe it was local to the Southeast, and it may also be slightly archaic: It just means that the difference is trivial at most. But again, I had just never thought about this before basically, and the answers probably are right in saying that feet are the preferred measurement by default. – Panzercrisis Aug 03 '21 at 13:18
  • @CJ Dennis: While that's true, many of us live in cultures that don't always work in base 10. Often we work in base 2 (and not just if we're working in tech :-)), using halves and quarters of something, as with liquid measure, or in carpentry. Other times we work in base 12, buying things by the sixpack or dozen, or dividing the year into 12 months, the day into 24 hours... – jamesqf Aug 03 '21 at 16:26
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    @Panzercrisis: Perhaps you misheard, or perhaps it's a localism, but the saying is "six OF one, half a dozen OF the other", meaning there's actually no difference. – jamesqf Aug 03 '21 at 16:29
  • @jamesqf Yeah, time measurements are a good point! How easy/hard is it to remember how many days there are in a month? How many weeks there are in a month? Etc. – CJ Dennis Aug 09 '21 at 23:59

10 Answers10

48

Feet is the more common, conversational usage in the U.S. Your speaker would say he sat nine feet away from me

Yards are often used to describe particular things that are traditionally measured in yards. Sports often use yards to describe distances. A football field is measured in yards. A golf hole is measured in yards. Foot races used to be measured in yards (meters now).

EllieK
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  • There is not nearly enough context to know what someone would be more likely to say. What if I had just said “My dad sat about a yard and a half from me, how far was your dad from you?” I doubt someone would choose feet over yards. – ColleenV Jul 27 '21 at 17:34
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    @ColleenV - Quite simply, if you were an American YOU WOULD NOT SAY, "My dad sat a yard and a half away from me." I appreciate your deference to the unknown but I've been speaking all over the U.S. for fifty years, a learner should not start giving distances in YARDS. EOM. – EllieK Jul 27 '21 at 19:46
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    I am an American and I use yards when appropriate. Part of being fluent in a language is understanding what is appropriate for the context and not relying on silly rules that overly simplify things. Should a learner say 300 feet or 100 yards? If you think you can answer that without asking “Are they standing on a football field, you’re wrong. – ColleenV Jul 27 '21 at 19:59
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    Appropriate being the operative word. A leaner should say 300 feet as a general rule. I have applied no silly rules, I merely state that feet is the appropriate measurement if unsure. If I said, "My dad sat 260 inches to my left. How far was your dad from you?," would you realize how inappropriate it is to say he sat a yard and half away? – EllieK Jul 27 '21 at 20:04
  • @ColleenV, "If you think you can answer that without asking 'Are they standing on a football field,' you're wrong" - isn't that the same thing EllieK said? "A football field is measured in yards" – Juhasz Jul 27 '21 at 21:08
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    I have to agree with this one - I'd never use yards unless it was specifically in a context where yards were common. – Azor Ahai -him- Jul 27 '21 at 22:39
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    @EllieK Americans are so fond of measuring things in football fields that, say, 582 feet might become "almost two football fields". 300 feet could sound better as 100 yards since they're imagining a football field. But that's situational and tricky for a learner to know when, and is still "use feet, unless you have some other reason, such as it reminds you of football". – Owen Reynolds Jul 28 '21 at 15:09
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    And even when yards do get used, I don't think anyone pictures them as being three feet long. In football, 10 yards is the distance you have to go for a first down, from one "big" yard marker to the next, not 30 feet. In golf, 295 yards isn't 885 feet, it's about how far you can hit the ball with, say, a driver then a 3 iron. In track and field, 440 yards isn't 1360 feet, it's one lap. – chepner Jul 28 '21 at 18:22
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    @OwenReynolds I would say it's more about having something that is familiar to many Americans to use as a reference rather than just "being fond" of it. "582 feet" is kind of hard to imagine on its own, but if you say "almost two football fields", then people would most likely be able to quickly visualize the distance you are talking about. – Herohtar Jul 28 '21 at 19:08
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    I agree that feet is more common than yards for describing where someone is sitting. I am hard pressed to use yards in a context like this. – Lambie Jul 28 '21 at 19:38
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    FWIW British English uses yards a lot more than American English, I've noticed; but nowadays it's just as likely if not more likely to use metres... we have a very strange relationship with the metric system over here :D – Muzer Jul 29 '21 at 10:13
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    These people get it: ( https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/the-monument/key-figures ) yards as a unit would be absurd and not a "meter" in sight. Properly idiomatic translation. Funny story: the other day, in coverage of the Olympics, a newscaster said "just to put it in perspective for you, 36 feet is the height of two adult giraffes." I was glad he could describe it in terms that we could properly relate to our daily lives. – Yorik Jul 29 '21 at 20:26
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    @Yorik: Hence the saying that “Americans will measure with anything except the metric system.” Other popular “units” are blue whales and Rhode Islands. – dan04 Jul 29 '21 at 23:05
  • When I first read the question, I could only think of two things that are commonly addressed in yards. Those are football and fabric. I didn't know that yards are also used in golf, which I know very little about, so that makes three, I guess. There's also that a human foot is roughly a foot long, which makes it useful for estimates while a yard doesn't have anything really useful to compare it against except feet, which just introduces unnecessary mental math. Tiles used in flooring are commonly in foot-square sizes, which makes measurements easy also. Yards are awkward. – killermist Jul 30 '21 at 07:39
  • @killermist For estimates, a yard is about a stride. You can even practice making your stride about a yard for better estimates. – Peter Hansen Jul 30 '21 at 20:32
  • @killermist: And for measuring fabric, a yard is about the length you get if you hold the bolt of fabric close to your body, and unroll it to an arm's length. – jamesqf Aug 11 '21 at 05:45
43

I am very much on board with FumbleFingers' comment. Suspecting neither, that most would call it "feet", but rather than being precise would instead say "about 10 feet". Accurate measures are really only used in contexts where they matter.

SoronelHaetir
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  • I agree, the only exceptions I've heard enough people use would be something (often a person) being around 6 or 3 feet away. I suspect that's because the average man is around 6ft (probably a little under) so it's a way of indicating something is around a "person's length" away from you. –  Jul 28 '21 at 13:13
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    I wouldn't even say a number as an estimate. It'd just be "several yards away" (or "several meters away" if you're not in the US, they're close enough to make not much difference anyhow.) The only time you'd ever use specific numbers is if you want to draw attention to it like we've been hearing a lot of in recent years: "The CDC recommends keeping a distance of 6 feet to avoid spreading the virus." – Darrel Hoffman Jul 28 '21 at 13:44
  • I agree, saying 10 feet is natural, 9 feet is not. Many of the goods sold in metric countries are cut in imperial units. So 30cm (12cm) tiles and 3 meter (10 foot) boards are familiar. I suspect the OP is unknowingly doing this: 10ft -> 3 meters -> 3 yards -> 9 feet. Better to just reverse the original conversion: 3 meters -> 10 feet. That preserves familiar approximations. – David42 Aug 02 '21 at 18:13
11

My initial thought was that feet would be much more commonly used. Ngrams backs that up.

Kevin
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    But is that primarily because there are a lot more things that are built in feet? For instance, if I buy a standard piece of plywood (or siding, insulation, &c) it is 4 by 8 feet, a standard building stud is 8 feet long, and longer pieces of lumber are also sold in lengths that are some number of feet. – jamesqf Jul 28 '21 at 05:00
  • @jamesqf I don't think so as my ngrams search would not likely pull up hits having to do with the lengths of things. – Kevin Jul 28 '21 at 13:10
10

Either is idiomatic.

We tend to like more readily visualizable distances, an inch before a foot, a foot before a yard, a yard before a mile. But we also tend to like smaller numbers and whole numbers. We would be more likely to say 5 feet than 60 inches, but 18 inches rather than one and a half feet.

Between three yards and nine feet, I suspect it would be some of one and some of the other.

Jeff Morrow
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    Would that "some" be *six of one and half-a-dozen of the other*? :) – FumbleFingers Jul 27 '21 at 14:47
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    LOL. I wish I had thought of that, but perhaps it would have confused the issue. – Jeff Morrow Jul 27 '21 at 15:19
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    +1 Although, Texans would probably say 10 or 100 yards before 30 or 300 feet in some contexts because of football. How people say things depends heavily on where they are, what they’re doing, who they’re talking to and what they’re trying to communicate. If I’m telling a police officer the scary person was close to me I might use a “three arm lengths away”. Without more context it’s difficult to know what is the more likely thing someone would say. – ColleenV Jul 27 '21 at 17:22
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    "but 18 inches rather than one and a half feet." I'm strongly dubious about that assertion. "A foot and a half" is much more common where I live. – RonJohn Jul 27 '21 at 23:59
  • @ColleenV Texans would say 20 or 200 yards...because everything is bigger in Texas – Kirt Jul 28 '21 at 03:45
  • I don't think an inch is any more visualizable than a foot. If something is a few feet long, you don't measure it in inches. The examples given are also not terribly illustrative - you point out that small and round numbers are preferable, but don't justify why one should prefer a small number over a round number (5 feet vs 60 inches), and then you give an example where you prefer the bigger number among two non-round numbers (18 inches vs 1.5 feet). – Nuclear Hoagie Jul 28 '21 at 18:09
  • @NuclearHoagie You are right. I meant whole numbers. I shall edit. Thank you. – Jeff Morrow Jul 28 '21 at 23:19
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    @RonJohn I'd say "18 inches" if I wanted to convey a relatively high level of precision, and "a foot and a half" if I was just indicating somewhere kinda halfway between one foot and two. – A C Jul 29 '21 at 02:53
  • @AC as would I, if I knew something was exactly 18 inches. – RonJohn Jul 29 '21 at 05:56
6

Relatively small distances (such as 9 feet/3 yards) would normally be given in feet, as yards introduce too much "slop" (plus or minus amount) for comfort. 3 yards would technically mean somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 yards (7.5 to 10.5 feet), which is too imprecise for most people when talking about such distances. 9 feet would be 8.5 to 9.5 feet, a precision that most people would be comfortable with. When you start getting up to longer distances (such as the length of a football field), the +/- precision loss due to using yards instead of feet becomes insignificant, compared to being able to use more convenient smaller numbers.

Phil Perry
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    "longer distances (such as the length of a football field), the +/- precision loss due to using yards instead of feet becomes insignificant" - The length of an American football field is not a good example here, which is entirely based on yards (100 yards, divided into "yard lines"). It would be wrong to use "feet" here, but that has nothing to do with precision. – MrWhite Jul 30 '21 at 18:05
6

I don't think an American would try to be precise as '9 feet' unless it was somehow important. In the context of sitting distance it seems unimportant to me so it's more likely they'd say 'roughly 9 feet away' or 'about 9 feet away' than anything else. Now even more likely is that they round up to 10 feet as then it becomes clear that it's an estimate. If the context is football then I can see yards being used instead but otherwise yards feels out of place.

Chad
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    Normally I wouldn't say 9 feet in general. Usually I'd round to an even 10, unless it was exactly 9 feet and it mattered for the point of the conversation. Common distances would be 3 feet, 6 feet (normal height size), 10 feet, and increments of 5 or 10 feet past that – Cullub Jul 29 '21 at 18:26
5

In my experience, Americans rarely use yards as a unit of measurement in everyday conversation unless they're talking about golf, American football, or distances that are more than 50 feet or so.

djheru
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    "distances that are more than 50 feet" - although context still matters here. The height of mountains and how high the plane is flying, for example, is always described in feet, despite being more than tens of thousands of feet. – MrWhite Jul 30 '21 at 21:56
3

The American measurement system developed in a way that there is a bit of overlap between units. Your example is in one of those regions where either would be appropriate and not unwieldy. There is some dependency on the setting as to which unit of measurement would be more appropriate.

Yards are typically used for outdoor measurements where the distances are larger, but not large enough to get into the mile ranges. Yards are also used by people that tend to participate in outdoor activities where they will have to estimate distances in the region where using the yard as a unit of measurement makes sense. These activities will include football, golf, sprinting, and the shooting sports.

When the setting indoors the room sizes, unless you are a in a massive room, don't give much opportunity to give measurements in yards. If you were outdoors, I would favor yards. When indoors, unless you are in one of those aforementioned rooms, or wanted to add some of that outdoor flavor, feet would be more appropriate.

Using yards in place of feet when the situation is neutral will also make a person appear more outdoorsy or sporty, as the overlap in units allows for some personal preference, and the word choice would reveal a greater familiarity with that unit.

Mike Vonn
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1

The reality behind this question is that the normal answer would be "He sat down 10 feet from me".

An answer like "He sat down 9 feet from me" or "He sat down 3 yards from me" implies an intent to diminish the actual distance and paint the picture that the individual sat down in a very close proximity to the person making that statement.

Eric Hoy
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-1

Neither!

Objective measurement is a concept expressed particularly well in "the metric system".... er, SI. But most of the communication that we're doing (outside of the sciences and engineering) is going to be subjective. Let me give a handful of examples:

So, if I'm trying to express that an individual sat down 108 inches away from me I would tend to express it in a way that communicates what I'm trying to. Are we in the middle of a desert, nothing else for days? Then I'm going to express it by saying that they "were within spittin' distance". Are we in the movie theater? I'd say that they "sat down three seats down from me". Are we on a date? "She sat down just far enough away that we couldn't have a conversation, I won't call her back".

The same goes for larger measurements, as well. 100 yards? We know that because it's a football field, so we might use that as the unit. If I'm talking to people around town I'd say "Half a block away" or "three houses down", if I'm talking to people at the farm I'd probably tell them that "it's just a bit farther than I could chuck a baseball," unless I was talking to Mike, and then I'd say "You could hit it with a football," 'cause Mike likes to think that he's got an arm on him.

When giving directions, I don't care that you need to turn 1.347 miles after you get on the road, it's "two stoplights away". And the next gas station isn't 17 miles down the highway, it's "22 minutes from here", or "At the next Sonic Drive-In". And my sister doesn't live 610.7 miles from here, she lives (depending on context!) "9 hours West" or "The next state over".

It goes the other way, too. When I get a latte at the coffee shop, I ask them to add "just a drop of Hazelnut, I don't want it sweet at all". When I'm doing woodwork I complain that "I'm not done sanding, I can still catch it with my fingernail". And that's just a couple of the measurements that I've used since yesterday!

measurements used in this answer

distance, smallest to largest

  • catch it with my fingernail — two thou, or in SI .05mm
  • inch — 2.54 CM
  • seat — 28 inches
  • yards — .9 meteres
  • far enough away that we couldn't have a conversation — 6 feet
  • spittin' distance — 8-12 feet
  • house — 47 feet
  • hit it with a football — 50 meteres, reasonably
  • football field — 100 yards
  • I could chuck a baseball — 426 feet
  • block — 660 yards
  • minute — roughly 1.5 km on the highway, or .5 km in town. Closer to 0 km during rush hour.
  • mile — 1000 paces
  • stoplight — YMMV
  • Sonic Drive-In — Common drive-in that shows up in every town with more than 1500 residents.
  • day — 12 miles walking, 20 km
  • hour — 60 miles
  • state — YMMV

other

  • handful — Few enough to manage all of them.
  • an arm — in the 99th percentile for strength
  • since yesterday — 24 hours
  • drop — seriously, just kinda wave the syrup bottle near the cup, it'll be plenty!
nathanaelps
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