The joke comes from the fact that all of the measuring units in the metric system ( for weight as well, since the main unit is the gram not the kilogram) used add a suffix to the unit’s name to indicate a size that is x10 x100 x1000 … Smaller or bigger than the base unit. Time on the other hand is divvied up in intervals of 60 between the other units of bigger or lower size; while if we count time using the same logic as the other units of the metric system we would get hs ds and ks instead of minutes, hours and days; which are a lot messier since we are used to a base 60 system for time greater than seconds.
The joke comes from the fact that all of the measuring units in the metric system ( for weight as well, since the main unit is the gram not the kilogram) used add a suffix to the unit’s name to indicate a size that is x10 x100 x1000 … Smaller or bigger than the base unit. Time on the other hand is divvied up in intervals of 60 between the other units of bigger or lower size; while if we count time using the same logic as the other units of the metric system we would get hs ds and ks instead of minutes, hours and days; which are a lot messier since we are used to a base 60 system for time greater than seconds.
Okay … If you think that’s funny, that’s cool, man.