Six foot two, eyes of blue. kg v lb. cm v ft + ins

DH as an old school HMI in Yorkshire, was amused when a small boy commented “ Aren’t you big!” 6ft 4inches DH was amused and asked this child of the metric age “How tall do you think I am?”, expecting answer in centimetres. “Well, I reckon you must be well over 6 ft” was the unexpected reply.

Astitchintime

"As for recipes! Bring back butter in pounds. I know what that looks like."
Yes, those American recipes quoting sticks of butter make my head spin!

Butter is sold in sticks in the US, so it makes perfect sense for recipes to use a stick as a measurement. Each stick is marked in tablespoons too, which is handy.

A stick is 113 grams, or 4oz.

I still think and work things out in imperial measures :-) !

A stick is 113 grams, or 4oz

Thanks, I'll remember that!

Ps I have got a set of measuring cups and spoons.

I mainly think in metric except for my weight and height, babies' weights and, of course, miles.

Odd that, I think in metres for fabric, grams for yarn, and in Celsius.
Either system for measuring ingredients.

I never quite found out what a Country Mile was in the pre-decimal days, so darned if I'd know what it is in metres nowadays.

I am largely happy to use either metric or imperial, but I can only understand winter weather in Fahrenheit for some reason. It drives my family - who all do Celsius - bonkers.

Kilometres and miles I always think 100 miles - it will take ages, 100k’s we are nearly there!
I do know that kilometres are shorter but not that short!

Perhaps as we are a Nation who are notoriously bad at learning other peoples' languages, this brainwork is a substitute? Otherwise it's odd that we are still operating both systems after all this time.

50 kil-os of fun
She's my little honey bun 🎶

It doesn't even scan.

I was told years ago that a rule of thumb way of converting centigrade to farenheit was to multiply by 2 and add 30. e.g. 10 degrees centigrade = 20 +30 = 50 degrees farenheit.

I don't understand the metric system at all. I spent sometime yesterday on the laptop converting grams into ozs. I fancy trying the cheese scone recipe from the latest Jamie Oliver programme. I needn't faff with a weighing scale then as I know that a heaped tablespoon is equivalent to 1 ozs.

2.5 cms = 1 inch
30 cms = 1 foot
90cm = 1 yard all approximate.

30grammes =1 oz
120 grammes =4 oz
220 grammes =8oz
460 grammes = 1lb all approximate

Well, sorry to swim against the tide, but I just wish we would go completely metric! It's the faffing about between different systems that makes us confused. Look at currency - we changed to metric and we're all absolutely fine with it now. I admit to still thinking in stone for weight and feet and inches for height, but If we all just started using metric, I would soon adjust.

I agree that I wouldn't want to return to LSD although 12 divides more times than 10.....

Metric wins on ease of use where imperial is clumsy and difficult to learn.
However imperial wins on intuition.
A foot being round about a human foot length. Everyday measures come naturally to most of us.
It's ingrained in the language so will take a long time to lose.
i.e.
Tons of work
Miles and Miles
Milestones for children's development
Inching forward

Grammaretto

I agree that I wouldn't want to return to LSD although 12 divides more times than 10.....

Metric wins on ease of use where imperial is clumsy and difficult to learn.
However imperial wins on intuition.
A foot being round about a human foot length. Everyday measures come naturally to most of us.
It's ingrained in the language so will take a long time to lose.
i.e.
Tons of work
Miles and Miles
Milestones for children's development
Inching forward

It would be like losing an ancient language, losing all these old weights and measures!

maytime2

I was told years ago that a rule of thumb way of converting centigrade to farenheit was to multiply by 2 and add 30. e.g. 10 degrees centigrade = 20 +30 = 50 degrees farenheit.

I don't understand the metric system at all. I spent sometime yesterday on the laptop converting grams into ozs. I fancy trying the cheese scone recipe from the latest Jamie Oliver programme. I needn't faff with a weighing scale then as I know that a heaped tablespoon is equivalent to 1 ozs.

I made a cake today and just used the tablespoon and throw it all in the mixer method.
It seems fine, although I might take more trouble if we were expecting guests.

No wonder I can't make scones 😁

I have absolutely no idea about all the stupid centimeters, meters, etc. If someone on the internet is mentioned at centimeters I have to Google it to feet.

I hated it when at bus stops it said something like ''next stop is 1,245 steps''. What the bloody hell is all that rubbish about? Why not just say 1/4 of a mile?!

I've only ever used feet, miles, etc. etc and always will. I don't have a calculator for a brain and have no idea about cm and so on!

''They dug down into the ocean at 300m''. WHAT?! Googled it to 984 feet. Ah, now I know how deep they went!

Half a pint of lager please.
Not 300ml please!

Thank God we can keep the words in the language, Oreo.
We can use them for anything we like , just not for measuring stuff !!!
Those lines quoted are lovely , particularly the Robert Frost one .... how he can get a city kid like me to imagine the woods is truly marvellous......

I thought for the moment you had spotted me about!

keepingquiet

I think we've shown in this country how to two methods can sit side by side.

I just wish when we enter our weight they would stick to either metric or stones. I hate it when they ask for pounds- is that American pounds or British pounds?

American pound weights are the same as British pound weights. However American don't use stones as a measure of weight so a ten stone person in Britain will be a 140lb one in America.

American volume measures are tricky. The American pint is 16 American fluid ounces and the British pint is 20 British fluid ounces. I understand this dates from the eighteenth century or possibly earlier, when there were two types of gallon, the wine gallon, and the beer gallon (which was 25% larger). A pint is one eighth of a gallon. America standardised in the wine gallon and the wine pint, Britain standardised on beer.

American fluid ounces are very slightly bigger than British fluid ounces, though can be treated as equal for most normal purposes. This is again the result of standardising on wine, an ounce of wine takes up more room than an ounce of beer because wine has more alcohol in it, which is less dense than water.

Here in the depths of Ireland if you ask a passer by for directions it’s usually “a mile and a bit” up the road. The ‘bit’ is usually about 10 miles 🤣.

MickyD

Here in the depths of Ireland if you ask a passer by for directions it’s usually “a mile and a bit” up the road. The ‘bit’ is usually about 10 miles 🤣.

In Australia, ask directions and they'll say, take the first left.
That could be a couple of hundred miles further on 😁

Grammaretto I'd be astonished if anyone said they wore 25cm heels! That's almost 10" 😮 If you think of the 12" rule* you used in school, that's now a 30cm rule. That always helps me to visualise small lengths. And so, 10cm is approximately 4". A metre is approximately 39".

*The pendants among us, (I'm one) know that it's a rule rather than a ruler! The King is a ruler. I always told my Y2 class that! (Only back then it was the Queen of course) 😂 A 12"/30cm rule is a standardised measuring device.

Thanks for telling me Lizziepop .
I do know the 15cm is 6 ins rule etc.
I was trying to illustrate the confusion of it and ofcourse the fact that you would never describe your heel height in metric.
Quite a few posts now and yours is the first one to comment!

If I'd said she wore 10inch heels I think someone would have noticed 🤣