Bring back inches and ounces and all the rest

The splendidly-named British Weights and Measures Association has called for allowing the old Imperial system to return - and about time, too!  Shop assistants are always telling me that such-and-such is half a kilo and I have to ask them to speak English.  They get cross because they don't know the answer and I get even crosser!  And why do we have to use centimetres for small items whilst we continue (thank God!) to use miles on our road system?  And whilst we're on the subject, Fahrenheit provides a much clearer description of temperatures than Centigrade.  Tell me 'it's below 50' and I know to take a coat!

Comments

[Whitewall]

Here here!!

[Antisthenes]

No £sd though. The currency in units of 10s is much more suitable to calculation and how would our Yoof manage not well me thinks it would test their delicate progressives educated brain to destruction.

[Bob]

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the ironically named Imperial system. During my working years I was an electrical engineer and aware of several extremely expensive mistakes caused by faulty conversions between older, haphazard systems (both English and American) and international standards, both in aerospace and consumer products. Over time international trade will increase and world standards will be yet more efficient and desirable.

The same slow, uneven conversion to Metric is taking place in the US. For example booze and soft drinks are sold in both liters and ounces, but liquid fuel is still sold only in gallons.

[TheBigHenry]

David,

I feel your pain because I am also a senior and in some ways set in my ways (as it were). But you are definitely fighting a losing battle. You must adapt to the modern world. The modern world will not retrofit your outmoded needs.

Fortunately, modern technology can easily accommodate you. Get yourself a smartphone and download an app that will instantly provide you with whatever metric conversion you need.

Whining becomes not the senior. Be there or be square.

[Edward Spalton]

Picture the scene. It is 1960. As a seventeen year old pupil I arrived at the office of the corn merchant where I was to spend the next two years. The office had a high sloping desk and stools in the Dickensian style. The austere office manager passed me a weigh bridge ticket. " There you are lad" he said " Five tons, twelve hundredweight,
two quarters, one stone at twenty two pounds twelve shillings and six pence a ton. What does it come to?"
I asked for a piece of paper to work it out. "Lord love you, boy! " he said " What have they been teaching you all these years?"

A couple of years back, I went into a seed store and checked the pre-packs of herbage seeds for old time's sake.
They were in kilos(kg) of course but I was amused to note that the seed rates were given in kg per ACRE!

[TheBigHenry]

Dimensional analysis is an extremely useful technique for checking the plausibility of derived equations in science and engineering.

[AussieD]

Duffers all is not lost.

Sailors still measure distance in nautical miles,speed in knots [nautical miles per hour] and displacement in tons. Latitude and longitude are still used and measured in degrees, minutes and seconds. Angles/bearings are in degrees as is the ship's course. Longitude of course is a different kettle of chooks. One degree of longitude at the equator is a lot longer than near either pole but only four minutes in time from its adjacent degree no matter where you are along the line of longitude. Simples really.

Last year in the fair city of York and elsewhere I bought my beer in imperial pints but paid for it in pounds and new pence.

[Andra]

Yes, it's tricky but I'm OK with everything metric except I still think in inches and feet. I worked in the marble business for some years so I know about 20 or 40 mm for your bench edging but everything else is a mystery to me. I have to take my tape measure wherever I go.
Good luck with it, Duffers. But accept it you must.

[Loz]

Your EU country bumpkin and socialist pals look to have driven the last nail into the coffin of free trade in Westeros: -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/08/30/ttip-trade-pact-near-failure-as-france-demands-total-halt-to-us/

What a turn around for national socialism.

"Tomorrow belongs to you!"

SoD

[mike fowle]

Bureaucrats love everything to be neat and tidy and uniform, but the current set up where two systems are roughly operating side by side seems a reasonable compromise. For instance at the greengrocer's I use stuff is priced in both pounds and kilos (the latter being a legal requirement I gather). The weather forecast gives the temperature in Celsius with now and again a conversion to Fahrenheit. Imperial units are often more user friendly. When we oldies have kicked the bucket, metric can reign supreme.

[backofanenvelope]

Why not just allow retailers to use metric or imperial measures. Customers will soon let them know........

[missred]

This post gave me a headache.

[TheBigHenry]

There is one bright spot for those of you who lament the loss of familiar units of measurement. If the temperature outdoors is -40 degrees, you needn't worry whether it's Fahrenheit or Celcius.

[jimmy glesga]

The problem the Europeans had is they could not do the 12 times table as they could not count beyond 10. They had never got used to a 2 and a tanner bit so we had to change to help them.
Our six penny bit (tanner) became 2 and a half pence. So we compromised and it failed. Now we are oot. 😂