Reintroducing Imperial measures…..

25Avalon

We seem to have been pretty well ahead on this topic on GN, ahead of most of the press. Now they are in on it more information is appearing. I understand it has never been illegal to use pounds and ounces in the uk, but since 1995 by law shop keepers have had to show metric units and imperial units cannot be displayed more prominently than metric.

Seems a bit of a storm in a teacup. Personally I am happy to go back to imperial, but it will find its own level between what shopkeepers want and what the majority of customers want. I can imagine a shop keeper being kind to an elderly oap who doesn’t understand but then they are probably doing that anyway.

As for the beer glasses with the crown on great but we aren’t going to chuck all the 1 pint glasses away which we get free from the brewery. The breweries will get new ones manufactured with the crown on if they think it’s good advertising.

Idky people are getting so het up about it.

I'm moderately 'het up' about this because it is a complete and utter waste of time and resources. WE have far, far more to worry about in the UK than whether or not our beer glasses have crowns on them or shopkeepers are using metric or imperial scales.

Implementing this stupid time wasting idea will cost a massive amount in civil service time (as someone pointed out earlier), re-printing more paperwork than we can comprehend and retraining the people who inspect weights and measures. There is huge scope in it for consumer confusion and deception by dodgy traders.

OTOH. It deeply annoys me because of its uber populist intention, pandering to idiots like the Sunderland stall holder who thought that using metric scales was 'unBritish'. As if 'Britishness' was defined by refusal to join the 21st C. (or even the 20th C)

Posters might enjoy making snidey comments about 'government bashing', but this dreadful government, which shirks all its responsibilities and works only for the benefit of its rich friends and donors. thoroughly deserves to be bashed; hard and continuously.

The Americans have never given up Imperial measures fully and can they be said to be backward thinking? All their scientific papers are written in Imperial and having relations there they talk in cups never mind ounces or grams.
We still use miles and drive on the opposite side of the road to most countries, so have we fully embraced metric and what's wrong with a mix?

We buy our fuel in litres and our cars tell us mpg.

what's wrong with a mix?

There's nothing wrong with the 'mix' as currently used. It's to do with Weights and Measures legislation and the waste of time and money which would arise from officially running two systems in parallel.

Goodness, people are making heavy weather of understanding this fact...

I was 19 when we went metric and didn't find weights difficult, grammes to oz or pounds, but that is simply because so many of my recipes from my family or from old books are still in imperial. I'm equally happy working in grammes from straightforward metric recipes and simply use the metric button on my scales.
Lengths are a different matter however and few people (even my children and their generation) seem to know their height in metric. Equally km means absolutely nothing to any of us, either for speed or distance.

Just imagine the enormous cost the British people had to bear when we changed to the metric system, and echo the same costs or possibly more to reverse that arrangement.

It's not 'going back', just not forbidding the use of weights and measures with a longer history than the decimal system.

I still use imperial...hahaha.

I can do distances in kilometres, but I can't picture shorter lengths, eg centimetres. I can do smaller weights like grams but still have to do larger weights in stones. Litres I can manage but there are still anomalies that everyone uses such as buying wood, lengths are in centimetres or millimetres but widths are in imperial. Think 1800 millimetres of 2X4.

I still bake in lbs and ounces using old recipes but new recipes I follow in grams. Does all this make me bi-lingual?

No ldont think this will happen.Metric is so much easier especially for the younger generation who can hardly add up without a calculator.Imagine if they had to deal with imperial measurements!

oh, gosh, I only read the first page, and y`all made me smile!
thanks for that..
me? imperial everytime, when I go to local shop and ask for a quarter of a pound,, I have to translate to most shopkeepers, even older ones! and end up asking for so many slices.. or dumb sign language!

me? I can be into conspiracy theories, with a slight smile on my face, ie. not overly convinced,, but something to smile at,, and I reckon prices increased when weights and measures altered...

I can never remember my husband asking for anything other than a pint of beer, never 568 ml of beer.
I'm 5ft 4inches tall
But when shopping in butchers I'll as for 500g of steak or 1kg of beef.

I can't see us ever reverting to imperial measures but I also don't see us ever fully embracing metric our roads are im miles, I've no idea of my bra size in anything other than inches as sold in shop.

My daughter in law is American so when I send her recipes I convert to imperial. I think we can all get along as we are, my mum who bless her would be 99 this year always asked me to get her half pound of bacon ? which was fine.

My babies were born between 1980 and 1991. They had both imperial and metric weights on their tags but I was told the imperial one. Like many others I use metric for some things and imperial for others. I sell yarn and knitting needles - both in metric but when asked what the equivalent was by a customer I had to look it up. I have been knitting for 40 years and always used metric sizes. My personal preference would be to stick with both!

MaizieD’s analysis is correct: it's another Tory “dead cat”, designed to take our poor simple minds off the fact that the NI increase for Social Care (though actually to be used initially to make up for 11 years of Tory underfunding of the NHS), will take far more money away from a nurse or a fireman or a check-out worker than it will from a City banker or one of the Tories property-developer funders!

Suziemarie

I can never remember my husband asking for anything other than a pint of beer, never 568 ml of beer.
I'm 5ft 4inches tall
But when shopping in butchers I'll as for 500g of steak or 1kg of beef.

I can't see us ever reverting to imperial measures but I also don't see us ever fully embracing metric our roads are im miles, I've no idea of my bra size in anything other than inches as sold in shop.

My daughter in law is American so when I send her recipes I convert to imperial. I think we can all get along as we are, my mum who bless her would be 99 this year always asked me to get her half pound of bacon ? which was fine.

But American "Imperial" measures are different from UK ones anyway.

Your post shows that the UK was always able to use Imperial measures (pints) if it wanted.

Yes, it's a "dead cat".

The Crown stamp was never banned by the EU. Another mythical rubbish being circulated even now.

I don't certainly want to go back to imperial. Still it's another way of putting prices up. I remember just how much we were ripped off when metric came in; for example, buying a yard of material and charged for a metre.

I hate everything about Brexit and have no sympathy for those who voted for it. This is just another stupid idea to appease the masses, which does not include the young, whose futures are at stake. This madness that we are now experiencing is just the beginning. All I can say is 'I told you so' stop moaning and live with the consequences of your actions. As you all know you should be careful what you wish for.

This situation of going back to the 'good old days' of empty food shelves, no workers, more immigrants from all over the world instead of Europe not too much inflation will not get better, anytime soon, probably not even in our lifetime.

Zielort: Midwives always weigh babies in kilos, it’s the mums, all brought up on metric nowadays, that want the “proper” weight.
Personally, I can cope with my weight in kilos, but can never visualise heights in metres and cm. Shoe size, I have no problem with either unit

Sorry, addressed that at Zoejory. Pesky predictive text

For those set on damning Brexit, interesting that Hungary are now considering pulling out because they are set to become net contributors, no longer net recipients

My Slimming World group weighs in stones, pounds and ounces!

I love metric and hate the thought of ever going backwards and having to use imperial measures.

I was at secondary school in the early 80s and we were taught metric measurements not imperial, in fact, we actually embraced a European schoolday (8.30 - 2.00 with lunch after school).

I do know how to convert most weights/ measurements in both directions and do ask (mainly 40s+) people which they prefer to use if I need to give them some information.

@Zoejory...My sons were 3.182kg and 4.943kg or 7lb and 10lb14oz respectively. The midwives weighed them using imperial scales and I calculated them to metric, confirmed it with them and had the metric weights noted on our records. So yes, I embraced using metric with my babies' weights.

Oofy

For those set on damning Brexit, interesting that Hungary are now considering pulling out because they are set to become net contributors, no longer net recipients

That's just not true though, is it?

Folk need to stop reading the Daily Express and taking what they print as gospel.

@Supernan

We buy our fuel in litres and our cars tell us mpg. confused

Approx 4.5 litres in a gallon.... just saying in case it helps

Oh, and 1.65 km in a mile ?