Apparently, they do. For example, the white-tailed deer has a shoulder height of 1.0m to 1.1m, and that's in the North. Towards the South, they get smaller.
I guess, that would be a general thing. Mainland US is relatively temperate. The real giant kinds of deer, like e.g. moose/elks, only really live in colder regions, which are further north (including in Alaska).
I worked at McDonald's for quite a while as a teen. A regular hamburger patty there is 1/10 lb and a quarter pounder is...as you might suspect 1/4 lb. That would make an adult deer weight between 80 - 200 lbs.
The average weight of an adult male whitetail deer is 203 lb (maximum, 405 lb). The average weight of a female is about 155 lb (maximum, 218 lb).
I don't recall receiving any training on the weight of the condiments or buns, but I'd suspect they weight slightly more than the small patty amd slightly less than the larger one, so let's assume 1/5 lb. That changes our original 80 - 200 lb range to be 240 - 360 which is a little too heavy.
In conclusion, hamburgers are a shit measurement, but if you had a mix of 800 child-size and adult-sized burgers and you hit it with your truck, it would do a similar amount of damage as hitting a deer.
Yeah, it's particularly weird, because surely people from the US have a good sense how much a pound weighs, and a pound weighs more than a burger, so you need to imagine a less big number of them.
According to google, a deer has a height between 0.85 to 1.5 metres.
According to the Texas Almanac, the Lone Star State extends 801 straight-line miles (from north to south). This equates to 1289084,54 metres.
Taking this into account, a deer is between 0,00000066 and 0,0000012 Texas.
Great question!! Ok a rough estimate is the best I can do. As everything is bigger in Texas, I will take a relatively big deer for reference. As you will understand, I must compare area with area, so here goes:
Taking a BigMac as a reference and assuming a patty diameter of 10.4cm Source. This would lead to an area of 84.95cm2.
A bigger deer skin could be 150x139 cm Source. On the one hand this is an overestimation because those are the maximum measures and it’s not perfectly square, but on the other hand we’re not taking certain area’s such as the hooves and head into account. The area comes to 20850cm2.
So one deer is, in terms of area, as big as 245,4 hamburgers.
Say what you will about the American education system, but I know it’s a 1/4 lb burgers because you could get close(ish) to 200 lbs of meat from a deer if you were lucky in Oregon Trail.
That's how you know that Americans hate even their own imperial system. As an American myself, I gotta ask, is it the weight of a Cheeseburger or the Big Mac?
So to answer your question, they're using something closer in size to the cheeseburger and not the Big Mac, as 800 Big Macs is about ~190kg whereas 800 cheezburgers is about 96kg.
It would be the same as the metic system having something like a "hand"
That if you wanted to express 1/3 of a meter you could just call it 1 hand.
2/3 meter would be 2 hands.
If you were using this metric system and knew that something had to be two hands long. You'd simply call it 2 hands instead of .66 meters or 66 centimeters.
If something had to be 2.5 hands long it would be .825 meters or 82.5 centimeters
Meter and yard are both random established lengths. Using miliyards or millimeters is exactly the same.
US customary units just have smaller unit names you can call them if it is convenient. If you never wanted to use anything but yards like the metric system does meters, it's possible. Don't want to use miles? Then megayards.
I do think 1 simple system that everyone uses is needed and the metric system is simple.
But if stupid Americans can use the "difficult" system, it can't be too hard.
But if stupid Americans can use the "difficult" system, it can't be too hard.
I think about this whenever I see someone complain about how Fahrenheit is arbitrary and how are you supposed to remember that water freezes at 32° and boils at 212°. I guess American brains are just able to retain more.
You never deal with 0°C/32°F or 100°C/212°F unless you're in a science lab.
They are nice numbers in celcius, but for real-world applications, it's almost meaningless.
When I boil water on the stove, I don't check if it hits 100°C. When I freeze water in the freezer, I don't check if it hits 0°C.
Everyone can get by without knowing the exact degrees.
This is pure water at standard pressure. Higher or lower altitudes will change it, and if your water has minerals or impurities in it, it will also change it. It's pretty arbitrary.
Water on roads can freeze before it hits 0°C outside. It can even snow above 0°C.
Fahrenheit is a very simple scale other than those two things. <0° extremely cold, >100° extremely hot for air temperature. Freezers are 0°F and Saunas are 200°F. Hot tubs are 100°F. You bake cookies at 325° to 375°, pizza is cooked at 600° to 800°F. You'll find a lot of 25° increments in cooking.
Fahrenheit isn't really a part of the US customary units.
Knowing both Fahrenheit and Celsius, I do think Fahrenheit is simpler for real-world applications. For science they are just numbers on a scale. Converting is the only real problem.
I just feel the need to say the yard and meter weren't randomly established distances. They were chosen. Meter being the earth's circumference divided by 40 million (or rather the distance from the pole to the equator divided by 10 million). Useful for map making and navigating.
And the yard being the distance from the nose to the thumb of some British monarch, Henry I, I think. Useful for buildings and making sure things are within reach for the average person
We have an 18cu ft upright freezer, it currently contains probably about 60lbs ground venison, plus roasts and cuts from two deer, but also something like 1/8hog, 1/4cow, bunch of fish and say 1/2dozen prepped dinners. You could fit like 5or6 processed deer I bet in the average chest freezer which would be a great many burgers, say 3 or 400.
I found on a quick search that 0.5lb ground beef is 14.44cu in. So if we're calling all red meat the same density, and a loose packing factor of 0.75 it looks like about 1615 1/2lb venison burgers in my freezer which is quite a bit more than 400.
I mean there is a good reason.... And that reason is, which I will state in this comment, is that the reason is very good in terms of the fact that hereby unto forthwith hence that reason is valid.
Most of our people are that way. Our arrogance in this stupid notion of American Exceptionalism holds us back, and too many of us are too stupid to realize it.
I use metric, so you tell me weight in kg and I imagine it in half the number of (2 liter) water bottles. Which I have a pretty good intuition for since I often carry anywhere between 1 and 12 at a time.
Of course if I had to suffer imperial, I would like analogies as well.
Since moving to the UK, I'm still trying to get used to medieval bollocks. Gimme analogies, because Stones used to be 1 Stone of wheat was a different weight to 1 Stone of, say, actual stones. Mental.
As an American, I appreciate when measurements are already laid out the way I’ll understand. A “meter” isn’t a thing. A hamburger is a thing. Thank you.
A meter is defined as a thing but the distance traveled by light in 1/299792458 of a second may not be the most evocative reference for the common person.
Hamburger is not a standard measure. Do you mean it's a small cheeseburger or a large deluxe super burger? What place do you take it from? Those can get to like three times difference in sizes.
It's impossible to say how big is a "hamburger". But you can precisely define a meter, and it gets intuitive very quickly with a fraction of effort you imagine it to be.
The inch is 3 grains of barley of course! At least the kind of barley they had In the 14th century. Alternatively the length of 12 poppy seeds in a line. You probably have lots of those lying around your house right?
The foot is about the size of a clown shoe, duh!
And the mile is about the length of 1000 paces from a malnourished roman soldier
It's a matter of habit. You intuitively know how much foot is, how much mile is, and it's only a matter of time and habit that you start intuitively getting meters and centimeters the same way.
But for as long as you make this transition, remember that:
1 inch is about 2,5 cm,
1 foot is about 1/3 of a meter
1 mile is about 1,5 kilometers.
Yes, those are not super accurate, but those are simple numbers and they give you a quick idea.