Imperial Measures

A litre would be a good sized drop, can’t imagine many asking for that for one. We sometimes get a litre carafe of wine when we go out for a pizza with a couple of friends, they sell it that way, gives us a couple of glasses each.

Johnson has really lost it, hasn’t he. He is living back in Queen Victoria’s era and the days of the British Empire. Much like Putin living in the old Communist era.

Good (amusing) article in the Spectator about this subject, by Sam Leith. Here's his last paragraph:

"The return of imperial measures is a piece of posturing so absurd even the government won’t pretend to believe in it. The worst it will do is give us all a harmless laugh. And these days, God knows, you don’t get many of those to the kilo."

I agree with him that the best way to deal with posturing like this is to laugh at it.

Crazy. next it will £sd.

It won't.

I shall celebrate when we get back to Imperial measurements and weights.

It won’t be £sd- too much cost to convert the currency.
As someone already posted, we use a mixture of measures anyway, but I can’t imagine post-decimalisation-born teachers knowing about or teaching children about 240d in £1 or 8 half-crowns in £1 and all the other stuff we dealt with in our heads, in pre-calculator days.

Aepgirl

I shall celebrate when we get back to Imperial measurements and weights.

You can wave the little Union Jack you've got for the jubilee.

Whitewavemark2

Bloody fool.

Johnson is a fool in so many ways! I trained as a scientist and thought in metric when working in a lab. However I still think in imperial when it comes to cooking and my personal measurements, but that's due to my age. I'm perfectly capable of converting when the need arises. I see no advantage in burdening younger people with imperial measurements if they are happy with metric and any conversions would inevitably become an excuse for price rises adding to already excessive inflation. There are things that still use imperial - we buy beer by the pint as well as milk, though the volume is on the bottles in metric as well. And when working out how much mileage I get I convert to 'miles per gallon' as that's the only measure that my brain understands.

The milk I buy is measured in litres, not pints.

agree - i still measure in feet and inches

He's aoming this at the demographic that votes for him,dont the older generation get enough stick for living in a time when house prices were lower etc .The younger generation will just call us all old fools if we didn;t master metric in 50 years ...and they may well be right about that

I am happy using both, but then I'm in the age group that grew up with imperial measures. I always measure in feet and inches and all my old recipes are in pounds and ounces. Metric does not work for some things at all, especially body measurements on which imperial measures are based.

Personally I welcome it, I have never been able to grasp metric. Don't see why we can't run a dual system

Fascinating to see dome comments on here - citing the USA as users of Imperial measurements.

Maybe in the country stores or towns in the middle of nowhere, but all of the scientific and engineering work is carried out in the metric system, to ensure product compatibility in a global economy.

Imagine space telescope launched by NASA's imperially measured rocket stages but in feet and inches, carrying a multi-national satellite for low earth orbit using the standard metric system.

As someone else has said - maybe OK for stroppy market traders, or as a hobby, but for everyday - not a chance.

That's what the Romans have done for Brexit and the latest dead cat.

Germanshepherdsmum

The milk I buy is measured in litres, not pints.

So is my supermarket milk but it does state the pint equivalent.
My doorstep pint is a pint but tells me how many millilitres it is too.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202205/medium-383359-174e3cc1-27f8-41a9-af15-ab8d01d9dd31.jpeg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202205/medium-670077-f1abfb07-f37b-4c0a-9210-70f34340c5f0.jpeg

Germanshepherdsmum

The milk I buy is measured in litres, not pints.

I’m surprised to hear that, as all the supermarkets and milkmen I know sell in one pint increments, and show the metric equivalent.

paddyann54

He's aoming this at the demographic that votes for him,dont the older generation get enough stick for living in a time when house prices were lower etc .The younger generation will just call us all old fools if we didn;t master metric in 50 years ...and they may well be right about that

I was discussing weight with a teenage DGD the other day (she thinks she's too skinny although she looks just right to me).
She told me hers in stones.

Perhaps I should have asked her what it was in kilos

It's nothing but a distraction to turn our heads from the multitude of new laws that are dismantling our rights.

"As for the rest, how hard can it be to bake or sew in whatever measurement the recipe or pattern is in? Modern scales swap between different units at the press of a button, and surely every household has rulers or tape measures that can measure both inches and centimeters?"

No, Oldnproud! It's not difficult..............but I CHOOSE to use imperial. A few of my favourite recipe books, being published before metrication, are all in imperial measures.

As for tape measures and rulers, yes I am acutely aware that they also have both metric AND imperial measurements; again, I CHOOSE to measure in inches.

Imperial measures haven’t been taught in schools since the 1970s. If we go back to pounds, feet, and pints all those educated since then won’t be used to Imperial units.
My elderly neighbour had the answer…she said that they should have waited until all the old folks were dead before they changed the system?!?!

I think we've been casually using both systems for years now, haven't we? It seems the one that the Mail and other right wingers are celebrating is having a little crown embossed on pint glasses in pubs, instead of the CE mark. For goodness sake.. doesn't take much to cheer up the Brexiteers does it?

Choosing to use metric or imperial for a recipe or length of fabric is one thing- it affects no one but the person doing the measuring.

Reverting back to imperial measurements in trade and business would have serious consequences- imperial sized nuts and bolts don’t fit in metric sized holes. If the U.K. wants to export products to the rest of the world, then those products need to be compatible with the rest of the world. It’s no good selling stuff in bushels, yards or stones if your potential buyers use litres, grams and metres.
Getting in wrong can have disastrous consequences:

www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

When I was at school in the 80's, in my final year, my school was the first in the country to do a continental day (start a bit early and finish with a slightly later lunch and not go back after).
We had been learning both imperial and metric and how to convert them for about 3 years by then, so I can easily work in either.
It's funny though that we buy food in kilos and grams but travel miles using mph, babies are still weighed in pounds and ounces (unless you ask the midwife to convert it for you), we buy fabric and building materials by the metre.
Money has been 'technically' metric since 1970.
As far as I'm concerned, Boris coming out with this idea of bringing back imperial measurements is all hot air because we all work our measurements to whichever system works for us.
If I'm telling someone a measurement I usually ask whether they want metric or imperial so they'll be able to visualise what I'm talking about.
Personally, I prefer metric but I'll use whatever fits the situation.