Metric on the other hand is no more than 200y old.
Correct-ish – 1795 actually, as the first real statement and 1799 as practical implementations.
Reminds me of a Carl Sagan story where a member of the audience was relieved that the earth would be consumed by the sun in billions of years - not millions of years
I filled in the survey too
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We still use imperial in almost every area, we measure most of our land mass via acres (and with that chains, rods, etc), we sell pints, we sell stuff in inches (materials, clothing, etc) and so on.
The reality is that the UK brought in metric with the idea of using both, with one leading over the other where required, so why this is being discussed now, or talked about as an issue is beyond me, we kept imperial due to other English speaking nations (predominantly the US) using them, so not sure what the issue is, or who it's being aimed at as a benefit?
Elsewhere, a South African was bemoaning that she found the differences between American and British English really confusing, particularly around weights and measures and the British interpretation of Metric. I replied and it got a bit wordy so, I thought it was relevant to copy it here.
>>
Honestly, the British approach to the Metric system confuses the British. We've got this messed-up hybrid approach where we're _technically_ Metric but back in the 1970s we took to change like a duck to custard.
Examples:
We buy petrol (gas) in litres, no exceptions. But we measure fuel efficiency in miles per gallon. No-one under the age of about 45 knows what a gallon is, but we know how many miles we get out of one.
We buy milk in litres, except we can't quite let go the concept of "a pint of milk" so a small bottle of milk is 568ml. (The UK pint is bigger than the North American pint because a fundamental core of the Imperial System is "bollocks to consistency".) Beer is also served in pints because if we suddenly decided to change to half-litres that'd be a 68ml smaller measure and there would be a civil war and I'm not even joking. Compare with buying beer in the US, I was asked "would you like a small or a large?" and I was like WTF does that even mean?
(Aside: there's a new pizza place just opened local to me and they offer small, medium and large pizzas. I have no idea what this means, I don't know what to order. I've seen small pizzas the size of a drinks coaster and large ones that had to be tipped at an angle just to fit through the door, throw me a bone here. Don't you have a tape measure? It shouldn't be this difficult.)
We use metres and yards pretty much interchangeably if the quantity is "about..." Countdown markers to motorway exits could be in Metric or Imperial but who cares when they're broadly the same thing, you're doing 70mph and who the frak even knows what 70mph is in Metric.
I know my height in feet and inches, no clue in metres. Similarly my weight, that's in stones and pounds. We weigh nothing else in pounds and I don't know as any other country uses stones. *We* don't use stones even, other for that one thing. Someone in the US may say "this guy weighs 200lbs" and I have to convert it to stones in my head to work out whether he's a fat bastard or not _despite it being the same gorram system_ 🤷♂️
Buying timber, you might get a plank 3m long and 4" wide. No, me neither. Don't even get me started on plumbing standards.
In cooking and baking we don't measure dry ingredients by volume because that's the sort of bottled insanity likely to summon Cthulhu. A US Customary cup, a US Legal cup and and a Metric cup (yes really, that's a thing, WTAF, I'm looking at you now Canada) are all different things. (Whilst we're on the subject of cooking: a pack of cake mix is not a recipe ingredient, doubly so if it's a specific brand which is unheard of outside of North America. Please stop.)
Many older people here _still_ haven't worked out Metric, I think by this point it's just wilful stubbornness. The old boy next door to me (I'd guess in his early 70s?) was getting a gutter repaired a couple of weeks back, he wanted a short replacement piece and the roofer told him "I can only buy them in five metre lengths." He replied, "I don't know what that is." Oh come on mate, you've had FIFTY YEARS to grasp that a metre is almost the same as a yard, this isn't rocket surgery. I chipped in, "it's about 16 feet, Richard" and he looked at me like I was some sort of witch doctor.
Oh, and on spelling, it's "metre" and "litre." It just is. I'm not one to rag on Webster's English (Simplified) revisionism and the US can happily keep it's "color" et al, no-one really cares beyond friendly teasing, but "liter" is flat out wrong. Sorry America, you know I love you but we need to talk about this. They're French units, if you can cope with Notre Dame (even if you can't pronounce it) then you can deal with metres. Get with the programme.
TL;DR - Here Be Dragons. Use Metric. Hope this helps. 😁
Re cooking, now we have accurate and precise electronic scales it's much easier to convert all recipes to grams, throughout.
Oh, and a bit I missed there,
In the original discussion an American guy was bigging up feet and inches for reasons some have touched on here, it can sometimes be handy to multiple divisors. I asked, but what happens when you get really small? You surely can't start using things like 7/64" or 17/512", can you?
"Oh, no," he replied, "then we use the mil[sic]."
The mil. AKA, the thou. A thousandth of an inch. You've literally just Metricised an Imperial measurement, WTAF.
Re cooking, now we have accurate and precise electronic scales it’s much easier to convert all recipes to grams, throughout.
Quite. Because a cup of flour is a different measurement depending on whether it's sifted or not and that totally makes perfect sense.
I accept metric is easier to learn, but clearly society was totally unable to function for hundreds of years while using Imperial measurements.
No, it wasn't. But then we found a better way. It's called progress.
I can't believe that even primary school children could the maths behind the imperial measurement system. I hadn't realised that it was that easy.
Were talking about 7-12 year olds right?
It's quite obviously a parody.
(For the LOLs, I worked out the ribbon question. I think it's 4d change, unless they only sell by the whole yard in which case she doesn't have enough. Also, that ribbon is about five quid a metre.)
I worked out the ribbon question. I think it’s 4d change
Two six inch ribbons is 1/3 of a yard. Half a crown is 2s 6d, or 30d, so the two ribbons would be 10d and the change from 2s would be 1s 2d.
It’s quite obviously a parody.
I don't think it is - I was in primary school from 1970, and distinctly remember older pupils being taught to add up currency in L s d columns. The same would have been done for cwt / lbs / oz etc. It's only number bases at the end of the day.
(Not that I'm advicating a return to it for 0.694 milli-days!)
These are from an 11+ paper from the 1930s (so obviously designed to tax 11 year olds)
NOTTS. EDUCATION COMMITTEE
JUNIOR SCHOLARSHIP EXAMINATION, MARCH 12TH , 1932
ARITHMETIC
(Time allowed – 1 hour)Answer as many questions as you can, taking them in any order you like.
Do not write out the question but give its number only.
Use both sides of the paper.
Show ALL your working.1. A grocer sold 2 cwt. 3 qrs 21 lb. of sugar at a profit of a halfpenny on each lb. How much did he gain altogether?
2. A ball of string contains 88 yards. What length will be left after tying 86 parcels, each requiring 2 ft. 9 ins. of string?
3. I have a dozen piles of pennies, each pile is 2¼ inches high. If each penny is 3/32 of an inch thick, what is the value of the money in the dozen piles?
4. (a) Add together 0.6 3.025 1.365 and from the total take away 3.275
(b) How much is 90% of 14s. 2d. ?
5. Arithmetic books cost £6 18s. 0d. for 144. The total cost of supplying each pupil in a certain class with a book is £1 15s. 5½d. How many pupils are there in the class?
6. In order to reach his office by 9 a.m. a man leaves his house at 8.15 a.m. and cycles at the rate of 10 miles an hour.
(a) What is the distance in miles from his house to the office?
(b) If his bicycle breaks down after he has cycled for 40 minutes, find the number of yards and feet he must walk to get to his office.
7. In a window there are 24 panes of glass each measuring 10 ins. 9 ins. Find the cost of the glass at 1s. 6d. per square foot.
8. Eleven boys and their schoolmaster went camping for a week. Each boy paid the same amount and the master paid 10s. 0d. more than a boy’s share. If the total expenses were £6 3s 6d. how much was each boys share?
Two six inch ribbons is 1/3 of a yard
It is, I doubled it twice for some reason and started with 2' of ribbon.
The same would have been done for cwt / lbs / oz etc
Would it? Would anyone ever say eg. 1 gallon 7 pints rather than just 15 pints?
"Just the right shade of Tory blue"?
Also, I can't find any source at all for that image outside of Facebook.
It is, I doubled it twice for some reason and started with 2′ of ribbon.
I think this perfectly illustrates why, with metric, as least we have a fighting chance of getting measurements correct.
What's the old saying? measure twice, cut once. Still true today and very good practice, however, the old saying...
To put it more accurately it should be phrased more like: measure 1 and 5 thirty five sevenths, cut once.
It's just bonkers. Why. The world does not need this, we have enough problems, lol!
To be fair, I don't think Metric would've helped me here. I thought "they are six-inch ribbons, and there's two of them so that's foot." Then I went off to look up what a florin was, came back and went "a foot of ribbon, and there's two of them..." again.
Ie, it wasn't an error of calculation, it was an error of concentration.
The question is badly phrased, so are we talking about two ribbons that are 6 inch wide, or long?
Presumably the ribbon is on a big spool so 6 inches refers to the width of the ribbon?
So the question is incomplete -- 2x6" of ribbon, but we don't know what length of ribbon is required.
Or conversley, we might know we need 2x6" legnths but we don't know the width requirement.
1/4 gill none of your 35ml nonsense please
Guitar standards drive me nuts, I only have metric measuring devices but most things guitar are imperial. Some helpful companies give conversions. Warmoth are very good in this respect, here are some examples which demonstrate just how much easier the metric system is. I partcularly like the use of both fractioons and thousandths:
1-5/8" (41mm) - Narrow
This is the smallest nut width. It is very comfortable for fingering chords and playing rhythm.
1.650" (42mm) - Vintage MediumThis width is considered "vintage" spec. It is very comfortable for fingering chords and playing rhythm.
1-11/16" (43mm) - Modern MediumThis is the standard nut width. It is our most popular nut width size, and the closest to modern Fender® necks.
1-3/4" (44mm) - WideThis slightly wider nut width increases string spacing and facilitates lead playing and string bending. Players with large hands or a background in acoustic guitar may also appreciate this nut width.
1-7/8" (48mm) - Superwide
It'd be hard to make pigtails with a 6" wide ribbon. 😁
It’d be hard to make pigtails with a 6″ wide ribbon. 😁
You say that, but what if you are the mother of the twins in 'The Shining' 😀
Curses, my secret identity is revealed!
What’s next, Roman Numerals?
I for 1 expect so.
Roman numerals on number plates would get the vote of BMW owners, all those Ms and Xs and Is. MMXXII
It’s quite obviously a parody.
I don’t think it is
The bit where it says 'assuming Doris is honest'......?
First rule of any exam; read all of the question properly.
I for 1 expect so.
👏
Not that I think that it would be the best idea but I see not reason why any seller shoulkd be forced to use specific units. If you don't want to buy from them then go else where.
Be aware all you nay sayers that it did work perfectly well and people coped happily not knowing there wasa supposed problem.
Personaly I think a hybrid would be great. A mil is great but there should be something between a cm and a metre ( Yes I know about decimetres but who uses them? A foot does it nicely and is also the same size a size 8 welly.
I live in Canada and have to deal with all this part metric/part imperial* shit all the time and it does my head in...
But this is also the country which flips the date format from DD/MM/YYYY to MM/DD/YYYY part way thru the same Federal immigration forms, so there's no hope of adopting (and enforcing) one standard
*applies to just about anything imported from south of the border, so lots of stuff.
Would it? Would anyone ever say eg. 1 gallon 7 pints rather than just 15 pints?
“Just the right shade of Tory blue”?
Also, I can’t find any source at all for that image outside of Facebook.
I meant the maths, not the additional (obvious parody) at the end which I somehow thought was in a separate post.
Must try harder...
Not that I think that it would be the best idea but I see not reason why any seller shoulkd be forced to use specific units. If you don’t want to buy from them then go else where.
Consistent units makes comparison easier and metric is much better than the imperial system we used to have.
"mattsccm:
I see not reason why any seller shoulkd be forced to use specific units. If you don’t want to buy from them then go else where. Be aware all you nay sayers that it did work perfectly well and people coped happily not knowing there wasa supposed problem."
Sellers should be forced to use specific units so that consumers can easily tell what they're getting. Using erratic units is a great way to hide the actual cost. Even with just metric it happens- look at the soft drinks section and tell me quickly which is the best deal, the 1.25 litre, 1.5 litre or 2 litre cokes and pepsi? Now add the 2 pint bottle and the gallon...
And yes it did work perfectly well, though not as well as metric- back when everyone knew how to use imperial. Now, generations don't. It's like suddenly declaring everything has to be written in latin, and saying it worked perfectly well in 1000ad
Or claiming that contemporary written English makes any sense and is easy to understand.
When the **** are children going to be taught that a word starting with the sound of the letter "F" shouldn't start with the letter "P".
It makes no sense at all and just unnecessarily complicates matters just like all the other nonsense in written English.
Why can't written English make sense and follow simple rules like written Spanish?
Oh I hear you say, it makes us different and special and British.
I see not reason why any seller shoulkd be forced to use specific units
Because Government at the time was trying to make us more productive and efficient, by switching to a consistent set of units as used by most of the world. The quicker and cleaner the transition, the more effective it would be; if it dragged on with 2 sets of units being used that would be even more inefficient.
It's a question of where you draw the line between accepting concessions to achieve whatever is best to raise everybody's standard of living, or maximizing individual freedom irrespective of the effect on the population as whole. The current Government favours the second.
It’s a question of where you draw the line between accepting concessions to achieve whatever is best to raise everybody’s standard of living, or maximizing individual freedom irrespective of the effect on the population as whole. The current Government favours the second.
Indeed, but I'm not clear on the actual proposal yet TBH.
Will they be mandating imperial units, just providing the option to display dual units (essentially the existing situation) or mandating dual unit display? I just don't get it...
We already have a functional set of units in the UK, mostly metric/SI but we do have a few odd 'legacy' ones like selling beer by the pint or using miles/MPH for our roads when all of our neighbors use Km/Kmh.
TBH everyone gets it, there's very little confusion with the status quo. So what's the bloody point of proposing a (rather vague) change in favour of previously retired units? Other than as another toot on a Dog whistle...
We already have all the 'individual freedom' necessary when it comes to weights and measures, you can use Ounces if you really want, the millennial wage slave on the deli counter might not know WTF you're on about though...
But this is also the country which flips the date format from DD/MM/YYYY to MM/DD/YYYY part way thru the same Federal immigration forms, so there’s no hope of adopting (and enforcing) one standard
There is a standard, ISO 8601. The US has the right idea with MM/DD, it's just that the year is in the wrong place.
Or claiming that contemporary written English makes any sense and is easy to understand.
Squirrel!
We already have all the ‘individual freedom’ necessary when it comes to weights and measures, you can use Ounces if you really want, the millennial wage slave on the deli counter might not know WTF you’re on about though…
It’s ‘convention’ it’s easier to standardise on words and phrases that are commonly recognised.
No when cares if their pint glass is filled in litres or fluid oz’s as long as it’s to the top 🙂
This is interesting.
https://ukma.org.uk/what-is-metric/uk-progress/uk-metric-timeline/
1977
...
A major carpet retailer (now no longer in business) finds enormous commercial advantage in reverting to sales by the square yard because these prices appear to customers to be 20% cheaper than those in metric. Metrication of carpet sales enters into a full-scale reverse. It is realised, belatedly, that a voluntary approach to the retail changeover does not work. Retail associations press the government for cut-off dates for imperial pricing of a wide range of products.
...
1980 onwards
Manufacturing industry, which had been slow to adopt metric measures, now sees its export markets shrink as other countries of the former British Empire complete the metric transition. Although this is not the only factor contributing to Britain’s industrial decline, it is a significant one. Hard hit is the West Midlands, the birthplace of the industrial revolution.
What's that saying about learning from history?
or maximizing individual freedom irrespective of the effect on the population as whole. The current Government favours the second.
Name a government in the last 70 years that has removed more personal freedoms when in office.
Brexit has removed a host of freedoms.
Covid measures removed more personal freedoms than two world wars.
The new women's and human rights laws are misnomers.
Covid measures removed more personal freedoms than two world wars.
Are you sure about that?
Tim Harford tearing the survey apart just now on R4 More or Less.
On a side note, check out his podcast "Cautionary Tales", it's excellent.
