Imperial Measures

PS. I'm 1.79 metres, according to the hospital which measured me last week.

MawtheMerrier

I’m with Allison Pearson when she says
For some of us they never went away. I mean, who ever got an excited phone call from a son-in-law crying, “She weighs 3.62874 kilograms!”
British babies are measured in pounds and ounces and I reckon they always will be. So are cake ingredients. Well, they are for those of us who were taught to make Victoria sponge by mum or grandmother using a ready shorthand: one slightly heaped tablespoon equals one ounce of flour. Same with butter. A pack will always be half a pound to me, not 225g. If I am following a recipe that uses grams, mentally I translate the ingredients into what feels familiar and comfortable.
When Princess Elizabeth ascended the throne, she was the average height for British women: 5ft 2in. Seventy years into her reign, the average height for women has grown to 5ft 4in. . What does 1.6256 metres say to most of us ?

I don't know when you or Allison Pearce last had a baby, but my last one was born in 1997 and I was told he was 4.8kg. I don't even know how heavy that is in lbs.

Most of these expressions I thought came from either the sea or the textile industry!

Is that true Maisie? Gosh. I'd always thought it was from the Navy - putting your toe on the lines of deck ing boards (when you were just an ordinary seaman with no shoes). As in the underling lining up for inspection.

'Toe the line' is a racing expression. Competitors all had to have a toe to the starting line for a fair start.

I’m with Allison Pearson when she says
For some of us they never went away. I mean, who ever got an excited phone call from a son-in-law crying, “She weighs 3.62874 kilograms!”
British babies are measured in pounds and ounces and I reckon they always will be. So are cake ingredients. Well, they are for those of us who were taught to make Victoria sponge by mum or grandmother using a ready shorthand: one slightly heaped tablespoon equals one ounce of flour. Same with butter. A pack will always be half a pound to me, not 225g. If I am following a recipe that uses grams, mentally I translate the ingredients into what feels familiar and comfortable.
When Princess Elizabeth ascended the throne, she was the average height for British women: 5ft 2in. Seventy years into her reign, the average height for women has grown to 5ft 4in. . What does 1.6256 metres say to most of us ?

Toe to the line maybe was the origin I suppose Maw but the line of command made you jump to it I suppose.

I think we sometimes have to batten down the hatches before logging on to Gransnet ?

OK to be pedantic - (for a change-not!) but how many people misuse idioms because they have no sphere of reference.
E.g. I see “Tow the line” a lot - clearly with no idea of the origins or relevance of the phrase.

Sorry Maisie - got distracted, youv'e already said this.

Maw - why would the sayings dissapear? We still say we are "on tenterhooks" even though most people don't know what they are. Many still use the phrase "put a sock in it", someone may be "lining his pockets" we may "get on board" with something and in a storm or stormy situation "batten down the hatches" and we may think someone is "sailing close to the wind.
We don't need to be textile workers or seamen to understand - why will the currency/weights ones be any different.

I think you are safe Maw for many years yet!

MawtheMerrier

Not forgetting
"Pound of flesh" and not 453.592 grams!

I think the context of that particular quote is actually best forgotten...

But I really wouldn't worry, Maw, you and I will have been six feet ( 1.83metres) under for decades before those sayings drop out of use...

?

Not forgetting
"Pound of flesh" and not 453.592 grams!

vegansrock

No one under 60 converts fluid ounces into hogsheads or bushels or whatever it’s all a load of piffle and makes us look even more like a banana republic with a tinpot dictator. If this is the best Brexit opportunity that they can come up with them it makes us look even more backward.

Officially we don't either.

I don't think it makes us look like a banana republic as we don't use those old-fashioned terms except in a colloquial way or as a comparison eg on milk bottles.

Yes, they are old and some are inherited from the Romans and even the Egyptians and Sumerians and the history of them is fascinating.

Metric is straightforward and boring but practical.

We don't want to go back to the old measurements, especially £sd, but it would be a great pity to forget them altogether.

It's another potty idea which will be quietly dropped.

MtM
No one over 60 does either. That’s true, although with the benefit of Google it wouldn’t take us long to find out what all those measures meant.
The only person I know who knows what a hogshead is, is DH from when he worked for a brewery.
All those sayings that still get used.

vegansrock

No one under 60 converts fluid ounces into hogsheads or bushels or whatever it’s all a load of piffle and makes us look even more like a banana republic with a tinpot dictator. If this is the best Brexit opportunity that they can come up with them it makes us look even more backward.

No one over 60 does either.
Hogsheads etc belong to the distant - not anybody’s present or indeed even the recent past!
But how about
“I love you, a bushel and a peck” from Guys and Dolls
m.youtube.com/watch?v=TOhNX921D0g
Not forgetting those well known idioms
A pie and a pint
Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile
Go the extra mile
A ha’porth of tar (or anything)
A pint of your best bitter
We still use these and many others and I will be sorry when they and their like disappear from our language.

Daysy Mon 30-May-22 18:42:59

Pints and pounds were never outlawed, nor was it ever illegal to print the crown on pub glasses. People have just naturally moved towards using metric systems because it's easier to use.

Exactly.

Just more nonsense from Johnson, desperate to appeal to his dwindling support base.

I'm not a traditional Conservative voter, but I think Johnson disgraces the Party - he simply wants to fulfil his personal ambition, nothing else matters to him. He allegedly told another minister that he had no intention of resigning and that it would take a "flame thrower" to unseat him. He's the ultimate narcissist, and is not fit to be the PM. With him, it's personal, and that cannot be good for the nation as a whole.

Liberia and Myanmar.

Which countries in the world do not use metric?

USA and I can’t think of another.

No one under 60 converts fluid ounces into hogsheads or bushels or whatever it’s all a load of piffle and makes us look even more like a banana republic with a tinpot dictator. If this is the best Brexit opportunity that they can come up with them it makes us look even more backward.

Have you never noticed the miles per hour signs or the quarter pounders sold in supermarkets? What are these rules by which the UK had to abide?

There's nothing "silly" about systems which use base 10, which is an awful lot easier to calculate than Imperial measurements.

I would support a change back to Imperial. What is "easy" about a lot of silly little centimetres? I still think in yards, feet and inches and have to use a convertor to "translate." Anyone as old as me (75) is probably doing the same. At the very least, vendors should display both sets of measurements/weights. We're not in the EU now and we don't have to abide by their rules.

My children all learned to bake in pounds and ounces because they, like me, delight in using granny's scales, complete with the original weights. They've never found it difficult. I never stopped asking for items in pounds and ounces in shops. We still go out for a pint and fast food outlets constantly bombard all of us with adverts for "quarter pounders". It's all a lot of fuss about nothing.

That was supposed to be in quotes. Flippin' stylus.