Had they adopted the metric system
Or at least had an education system capable of teaching basic maths
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Americans if they adopted the metric system: ".25kg > .5kg"
Classic.
".25kg > .5kg"
Which one of those is a third?
Deoends on whether you're asking for a third of 0.75kg or a third of 1.5 kg
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Sounds to me like they missed the opportunity to sell a 1/5 burger for more instead.
Fifthy pounder on the way
The filthy pounder with cheese. Sounds like a good movie.
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TIL fractions don't exist in the metric system.
We wouldn't normally say "I'd like a 18/100 kilogram burger"...
well they do, but since it's metric it's always 1/10 1/100 ... and they have their own name so no math needed
Fractions still work the same way. The thing is Americans would think the 1/100 is bigger than 1/2, because 100>2. Doesn't matter what unit you start with
Edit: I see what you're saying with the names. But do you think the average american knows that a quarter pounder is less than a third pounder?
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Let's just pretend that metric doesn't have fractions.
Not that they don't exist, but in my experience I have never seen them used, if something is, say, 1/2 liter you see it written as 50cl...
For burgers, I have seen
- 150gr
- 250gr
- 2 x 150gr
- 500gr
- 1kg
But maybe it's only my experience and in other parts of Europe it's different
Would you rather eat the 113-grammer burger? Or the 151-grammer burger?
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No, Americans could have had bigger burgers if they weren't stupid.
It's not like Americans need bigger food.
Should have sold it as a 2/6ths burger.
The maths teachers wouldn't have been happy, but apparently the buyers would have.
"Woah, 2/6 is waayyyy bigger than 1/4, not like that teensy 1/3 burger they used to have"
No one went to A&W for burgers back then, footlong chili dog and root beer.
This, exactly.
Anyone repeating this 1/4 vs 1/3 bullshit never had one of their 1/3lb burgers. They were fucking terrible. Sysco prison-grade burger patties, drowned in store-brand ketchup with a thin slice of "American"-flavored yellow #5.
Absolute worst burger I've ever had.
Growing up, A&W was for chili dogs and a big glass mug of rootbeer. Never order anything else; its always a fat sack of disappointment.
That must have been a US thing. A&W in Canada has had excellent Teen burgers for decades.
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But that can't be right! I have it on good authority that A&W stands for Amburgers and Woot beer!
[VINCENT]
And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
[JULES]
They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
[VINCENT]
No, they don't have fractions, they wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter is.
[JULES]
Then what do they call it?
[VINCENT]
They call it Royale with Cheese.
No, they don't have fractions, they wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter is.
"No they have the metric system, they don't know what the fuck a quarter pounder is"
Fractions aren't imperial, fractions are fractions, everyone has them. It's the 'pound' that's imperial and normal people don't use.
#woosh
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Do Americans need bigger burgers?
Fair question. ☝️
Yes
Americans are every bit as capable of assuming a 1/8 kg burger is bigger than a 1/6 kg burger.
I'm gonna move the goal posts here and say smaller burgers are inherently better. I don't want to chew on a giant pile of ground beef.
You must love the smashburger trend
Absolutely. Throw on some cheddar or muenster and drizzle some hot bbq, we're in business.
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I will make a 1/100 pound burger, instant money machine
I've just had a radical idea to solve obesity in America
It was more because there weren’t many A&Ws around. Closest to me was over an hour away.
This is so dumb
I see this repeated all the time and I'm sure there's some truth to it, but A&W burgers are also disgusting and more expensive than their competitors. So there's that.
If we're talking about a focus group specifically comprised of regular fast food consumers, you're already kinda pre-selecting for the lowest common denominator.
No surprise that this segment would have lower education overall
I thought this was kind of a myth? I recall it being something like the quarter pounder was just well marketed so beat out even bigger burgers.
Wikipedia confirmed though:
The A&W research firm organized focus groups. The results revealed that many participants mistakenly believed that one-third of a pound was smaller than one-fourth (quarter) of a pound. Focus group participants expressed confusion over the price, asking why they should pay the same amount for a "smaller" third-pound burger.
This misunderstanding stemmed from consumers focusing on the numbers "3" and "4," leading them to conclude that one-third (1/3) was smaller than one-fourth (1/4), even though the opposite is true.[2]
A similar explanation appeared in The New York Times in 2014, citing the third-pound burger as one of the most vivid examples of consumer arithmetic failure.[3] In taste tests, customers actually preferred A&W's burger to McDonald's, and it was less expensive.
According to a CBC report, more than half of the people surveyed about the burger said they didn't buy it because they thought they were getting less meat.[4]
This is even more interesting if you notice that Americans use fractions a lot, maybe even more than countries with metric system. It’s 1/2 pound, 5/8 inch, 3/4 mile and so on. Countries with metric system just change the units. Typically we don’t say 1/2 km, we say 500m.
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