Imperial or Metric

Congratulations pammygran

Typical of this country -- halfway through making a change we chicken out, as happened thirty years ago with the move to systematic measures.

I for one prefer metric, as it's so much easier. Years ago I qualified as a weighbridge user, in tons, hundredweights, quarters and pounds - a farcical collection of units! I wouldn't want to try it today.

I buy and cook food in metric units, petrol in litres (not that I cook petrol)
use paper and envelopes in metric sizes and read temperatures in Celsius.
But then I never was any good at mathematics...

I have old-fashioned scales with two sets of weights, one for old recipes, one set for the new metric recipes. Learned "office practice" in imperial and all those lovely names for paper e.g. quatro, octavo; returned to teach office practice after metrication, everything in mm and A4, A5 paper sizes. Husband is a builder, uses metric for many things, but still refers to "2 x 4's" and sometimes combines metric and imperial in one item!
One thing I don't understand, and suspect it is a bit of a ruse: Details of new cars always refer to m.p.g., whereas we only know the cost of petrol per litre - is this to deceive us?!

You could work it out - but it would frighten you! OH does it occasionally - "Do you know how much petrol is per gallon these days???"

Elctronic scales can be calibrated in either metric or imperial measures. One for new and one for old recipes. Of course, you need a cup measure for American recipes!
You are so right dahlia - mpg is meaningless when we buy our petrol in litres!

I used to teach science in the 1970s and schools were teaching metric then. No more confusing 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet the yard and all those difficult things we had to learn by rote when we were in school. Do you really think that was a good idea? Not to mention adding up and taking away in £Sd !
Arithmetic was very, much more problematic then than it is now.
Given that, the generation that were in school then still talk about height in imperial and ask for their newborn's weights to be translated into pounds. It will take a while for everyone to adjust it seems!
In essence we are metric and have been for decades, with the bizarre exception of miles.
The fact that the americans doggedly buck the trend and use imperial has occasionally caused VERY expensive mistakes in joint space projects etc I believe. ludicrous. Mathematics is the language of science and its units are metric. And we live in a scientific age.

I dont have a clue about dress sizes either unless they are in 12, 14, format.

JessM Americans use imperial for lots of things – feet and inches, pounds and ounces, for example – and also use the Fahrenheit scale for temperature. However, an American pint is 16 fl oz whereas an imperial pint (the one used in our pubs) is 20 fl oz. There are still 2 pints in a quart and 4 quarts in a gallon but because the pints are smaller, so are US quarts and gallons.

Perhaps we should all return to the days of pecks and bushels and rods, poles and perches. I find it find it difficult to believe that we actually learned all these measurements at primary school by sitting chanting 22 yards, 1 chain; 10 chains, 1 furlong; 8 furlongs, 1 mile etc.

absent, they still measure horse races in furlongs. How many people know that a furlong is 220 yards or almost exactly 200 metres?

When those measures were invented, the people using them probably only used one or two of them and didn't need to know about all the rest. Where money was concerned, most people only had to deal with pennies, halfpennies and farthing (fourthings). All perfectly sensible until we started getting richer in monetary terms and needed measurements for far more things because human lives got more complicated.

When the generation that grew up with £sd and stones, lbs and oz die, those will die too except as historical curiosities. Why fuss in the meantime? We've managed for forty years or so with both. What's another thirty? Or whatever it takes.

Maps are metric. Road signs will become so in time.

Woteva!

annobel, does it matter?

Nah.

I used to love doing the conversions from £ s d to all pence or yd ft ins to inches. We keep a log of how many MPG we get most of the time - especially on long journeys and we convert to MPG - work out how many miles to the Litre and then multiply by 4.546 but I do use a calculator to do it.
Very sad I know but I often convert prices back to old money - gives you a shock though - and I still cook in imperial although I have started making curtains using metric.

'course not, Bags, just speculating!

groats anyone?

That's good, anno. I thought so, but some posters have seemed bothered by the fact that we are still in a transition period.

Doesn't really matter which you use as long as you are comfortable with it and use the same units for the job in hand.

Bags 'bothered' is NOT the word I would use. Perhaps 'baffled and amused' - as said, I am surprised it's so far taken 40 years, and now some more .

I'm glad we've managed to resist for so long - and I hope we continue to do so for many more years!

I wonder how long it took France to change when Napoleon made it official. Does anyone know?

Couple of generations, maybe?

I have a small book entitled 'Wightman's Arithmetical Tables' published sometime in the fifties. It is packed with interesting information on a whole range of weights and measures and on one page states that a Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed 13th February 1895 recommended changes in the system of Weights and Measures as follows:-
(a) The metrical system should be at once legalised for all purposes,
(b) After a lapse of two years it should be rendered compulsory,
(c) It should be taught in all public elementary schools as a necessary and integral part of Arithmetic and that decimals be introduced at an earlier period than was the case at present.

On the 6th August 1897, the first of these recommendations was passed. It was made lawful for use in trade, although the Imperial System remained legal. An Order of Council, 19th May 1898, approved the metre, kilogram and litre and gave explanations as to how they were represented.

Don't know about you, but I didn't realise it had been discussed that long ago.

hello, *flump that is fascinating! Thank you.

18 pence is 1 and 6d, 20 pence is 2s, 40 pence is 3s and 4p.....give me a decimal point any day!

114 years - thanks Flump I didn't know that, very interesting. So what's that- 5 generations now. Resist, resist - lol.

Was it 1795ish that the metric sysyem was introduced in France? The Treaty of the Metre wasn't signed until 1870. We're catching up, granjura

Maybe we're only resisting because it was a French idea (or people think it was) .

But, actually, as a nation we're not resisting. Money is metric and has been for a long time. We hang onto the British pint for milk and beer for nostalgic reasons. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn't harm anyone. We can, and do, measure distances in kilometres. Cars have miles per kilometre gauges as well as mph and petrol is sold by the litre.

Yes, there are a few idiosyncracies. That's what being British is about. We'll do it our way (sing that bit ).

It's nice that we amuse other nationalities so much. Wouldn't have it otherwise.

Quite a lot of the elderly French round here still think in francs and sometimes in old francs!