Just out of interest, may I ask......

pounds and ounces Jingle. But when measuring out for my weight loss programme it's in grams.

Yeah, see what I mean? Give me mpg any day. Old dog, new tricks and all that!

mrs mopp- it is litres per 100 kilometres

Worst was when they still advertised carpet as price per square yard- but then sold it in 2, 3 or 4 metre width, and by the linear foot. How on earth were you supposed to it all out ?!?

Both systems are good- but mixing the 2 is an absolute disaster
(but as said, 1971 was a long long long time ago O: )

Have tried metric but can't get used to it. Still think of a 5lb bag of potatoes and half a pound of butter etc. Still think of my own weight in stones and pounds.
We haven't really gone metros properly have we? The men were talking yesterday about how many miles per gallon their cars do.
Metres per Litre? I don't think so!!

As I said Deedaa

Well you still go to a building suppliers for 2 metres of 4"X2"

My modern scales broke a year ago and I fetched my mother's 1940s ones out of the loft so only have the imperial option.

I remember overhearing a store worker passing an order for curtains to a supplier, and the length was in imperial and the width was metric (or maybe the other way about) - she couldn't figure out what I was laughing at.

(That store, Allders in Woking, later closed down. Not because of... oh well.)

Grams here. So much easier than working out how many firkins to an imperial wossname...

Fabric has gone metric Mamie. The old 3' wide is now 90cm and 45'' is now 115cm and 54'' is 140cm.

And then of course we measure fabric in centimetres but others in millimetres. As Icy has said wood is very perculiar and you have to ask for the length in millimetres but the cross section in inches. Is it little wonder we are confused !

I sometimes wonder if the present younger generation could add up £sd without the aid of a computer as we had to do - and do all the other weird measurements that were printed on the back of our exercise books !

I bought a digital scale from Lidl and it can be easily changed so I use both according to the recipe. I find with material if I ask for the length in metres then the shop transfers it to feet and inches and vice versa so I just can't win.

I am the same as Granjura, balance scales with a set of each kind of weights.
I haven't bought fabric for a bit - is it still a metre of 54 inches wide, please?
I do my weight in kilos, but my height in feet and inches.

joannapiano
anno Buying timber is wierd too - metric length with imperial cross section. 2 metres of twob'four please!

Interestingly,my cakes turn out inedible whatever units of weight I use.

Babies' weights are still usually given in pounds and ounces. I certainly wouldn't have known that 3.18 kilos was 7lb without looking it up.

I think if we'd gone completely metric in the 1970s we'd have had to adapt. The fact that it's been largely optional has meant that a lot of older people just didn't bother (or dug their heels in and just wouldn't!).

While I was living in Kenya in the '60s, East Africa went metric overnight. There was no crisis, no fuss. We all just got on with it, bought our vegs in kilos and our fabric in metres. Amost as soon as we got back to UK, the currency went metric. We measure retail goods in kilos and metres but our distances are still in miles. We buy our petrol in litres but our consumption of fuel is often still quoted in miles per gallon. Weird!

'going over' was in 1971- that was .....42 years ago, so should be long enough to adapt

Grannyknot- I am also 5'3 AND 1m63

Both- I was brought up in kilos and gramms, but then lived all my adult life living in UK using pounds and oz. I have books in French in kilos and gramms, and others in English, some in lbs and oz, some in kilos, and some in both. I have old fashioned scales, brass pan on cast iron body, and 2 sets of weights, round ones for pounds, etc, octogonal ones for kilos, etc.

One of my favourite baking book is still my vintage Be'Ro flour book, in lbs and oz only, but I also have a later one with both

Like using two languages daily, and driving both on right and left side, two 'cultures' etc- it keeps the mind active

Grannyknot How are we supposed to deal with someone who's 2 metres tall? I can't even begin the visualise it. And when you get things like 1 metre 89 ...............

I've got to the stage where I use either, but I can still only guess accurately in imperial.

nonsense sentence, but hopefully you get my drift.

I do both, but prefer pounds and ounces. Mostly my cooking is all guess work and taste. Apart from cakes, where it matters - and I rarely make more than one type anyway.........when, on the whole, it doesn't really matter.

Generally use imperial for cooking because I use a Tala measuring cup for most quantities and that is in ounces.

Completely au fait with both systems because back in the 1960s I worked in a job where I was constantly converting long tons, short tons and metric tonnes from one to t'other. When midwife told me the weight of my first born in metric and imperial, she got the conversion wrong and there I was lying in the delivery room after a 30 hour labour with DS in my arms knowing the conversion was wrong, trying to do,, in my exhausted state, the mental arithmetic required to work out the real weight in lbs and ozs and wishing I had my slide rule with me instead of concentrating on my beautiful son. I do not think the experience scarred him for life!