As a speaker of multiple languages, I’m often aware of how inherent habits in our speech can greatly influence the extent to which other people make sense of it. But even when you speak the same language, even a topic as simple as the weather can already bring unnecessary friction to the conversation if the speakers are using incompatible units (cough cough). Or maybe I’m just coming up with an arbitrary reason to justify this party trick. In any case, I describe a mental heuristic that g...
