A question

[dani_the_girl]

Do Americans talk about units of alcohol (e.g. a pint of beer is 1 unit, a glass of wine is 2)? Or is that just a UK thing?

Comments

[dreamatdrew]

Not commonly.

[dani_the_girl]

Drat!

[synecdochic]

I've never heard it from any US native, no!

[dani_the_girl]

Botheration! How about being "over the limit" as in the drink/drive limit?

[synecdochic]

Yeah, that would be rare in my particular circles but more common in others. (There have been a few anti-drunk-driving campaigns that popularized it.)

[princessofgeeks]

Only in a medical setting, and then we use ounces.

The measuring term here in the context I think you want would be "servings."

[dani_the_girl]

Possibly. Will have to play with the sentence a bit.

[twistedchick]

People will talk about bottles or cans of beer, or six-packs of beer (the way it's commonly sold.) As in, "I had a bottle or two" or "Joe and I demolished that six-pack". Sometimes I've heard something similar in terms of glasses of wine or a bottle or two. But no, we don't generally count them in the British way, not that I've seen.

[caltha]

Random drive-by addition: I'm an early-twenties Californian, and I had units of alcohol drilled into me during middle and high school (ages 11-18, roughly) public school health education. I would guess that most kids who went through DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) or similar programs have had an alcohol equivalence chart put in front of them at some point (this much beer = this much wine = this much hard liquor), and I would lay bets that at least certain intersections of my American friends would know the concept if anyone brought it up, but as seen in the above comments it's not really commonly used in daily conversation or marketing.