Imperial Measures

Before decimalisation of the currency, but not before use of decimals for other calculations.

So the wall is 12 feet by 9.5 feet.

So an area of 108 (=12 x 9) + 6 (=12 x 0.5) => 114 square feet.

One pint covers three square feet.

So, 38 (=114 / 3) pints of paint are needed.

There 8 pints in a gallon.

So 5 gallons of paint are needed.

So notionally two pints left over, but as a practical matter more paint than 38 pints is needed as some will be left on the brush and be washed away when clearing up afterwards.

One gallon of paint costs 12/6, which means (for the benefit of younger readers) 12 shillings and sixpence. The work sixpence meaning six pence, but said as one word back then)

So five gallons costs 62 shillings and 6 pence.

That is £3 2s 6d

Conclusions

How many gallons of paint must the painter buy to paint the wall? 5

How much will it cost? £3 2s 6d

So, here’s a challenge. How many GN users can work that out? I don't know, but the number is at least one.

volver

How many painters are still working in £sd and feet per furlong?

5 gallons, assuming that only one gallon tins are available.

How much? 5 guineas, 3 crowns and a groat.

I made the cost £3/2/6d for 5 galls.

Wasn't a groat 4d? ?

It took me 5 minutes to work out with a pencil & paper. Hope I was correct..

Doesn't it actually show that our generation has a greater breadth of knowledge to use?

Star dreamer I think drinkers are more interested in what’s in their glass and they haven’t been short measured, than in which way round they hold their glass.

That's why your DH uses thou. Thousandth of an inch. US usage. And of course the US doesn't use imperial. It uses US customary units. Which is not the same as Imperial. Clear as mud, eh?

So if 80% of your customers are in the US, that's why they like thou.

volver

There is standardisation. It's the metric system.

Not if you are buying machinery from several different countries and shipping goods to other countries. Luckily most of our customers are happy to use imperial - 80% of our products are sold to USA.

geekesse

I remember doing maths before decimalisation. Stuff like ‘Paint is sold in gallons. One gallon of paint costs 12/6. One pint covers three square feet. A wall is four yards long and 9ft 6in high. How many gallons of paint must the painter buy to paint the wall? How much will it cost?’

You have to use base 3, base 8, base 20 and base 12 to work that out. I can’t see it catching on. 49% of the working age population have the numeracy level of primary school children.

So, here’s a challenge. How many GN users can work that out?

I just know that I am going to work that out!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Av2l4t0U4

If the glasses had a CE mark and a crown 180 degrees apart, then, in pastiche of shoes in Gulliver's Travels, Remainers could hold the glass one way, and Leavers the other. And those not wishing to say, could hold the glass non-commitedly, though there are two ways to do that, and care would need to be taken not to show the slightest few degrees of wobble in case of being thought to be secretly favouring one view or the other!

There is standardisation. It's the metric system.

StarDreamer

jaharrison.me.uk/Misc/RSF/index.html

Interesting site, but no mention of thou which my husband works in a lot of the time. Just wish there was some standardisation.

Oh joy! What a lovely way to distract the nation and pander to the elderly, Tory, Brexit voters who never wanted to go metric.
What a great way to waste yet more tax payers money teaching teachers to teach about bushels and pecks (for if you are going imperial, you can't stop at the odd foot or inch)!
What a delight for those poor industries who have been metric for years but for whom their Tory touting boss will make them change to imperial at a cost, no doubt, to the purchasers of goods!
Oh how they will laugh in the majority of the world where metric is simply understood and allow for easy trade. Look at funny Britain, off its rocker again! Letting the blond Buffoon talk then into another ridiculous activity to distract from his destructive law bending and lying.
Well done, PM - these postings just prove you know how to poke this nation!

Yes GSM. CE is a quality safety mark. I have clear memories of my time working in a charity shop where any donated children's toys not bearing the CE mark had to be binned or put in the 50p dog toy bin. USA-made Disney toys usually ended up in that! Poor Mickey!

My understanding is that the 1988 UK legislation could have been repealed or amended and the Crown mark could have added to the CE mark on the glass from 2006 so long as the Crown did not obscure the CE mark. Sounds like a civil service failure to advise unless Blair knew and blocked the change.

So where does this change leave the glass-making industry? Serious question. If made in Europe, will glasses still have to meet EU safety standards to be transported across Europe? Or will all Crown-only stamped glasses be made in the UK? It doesn't bother me if a glass carries a Crown stamp or not but it could be good if this move stimulates the UK glass industry. Not unlike the 18C American print industry which saw substantial growth as a result of Noah Webster's post-independence spelling reforms.

It’s all too much for my wizened old brain.

Germanshepherdsmum

Does he need to apply more than one coat??

Let’s assume not :-)

So the EU (of which we were a member) didn't make us take away the crown then?

The major breweries could have bought their own glasses, if they were that bothered. Which I doubt.

I don't think that pint glass buying was nationalised.

OakDryad

Read the thread 25Avalon. The EU did not make us take the Crown mark off. The failure of the UK to repeal it's own 1988 legislation which did not allow for two marks did that.

Quite interesting when you look into this and beware of newspaper sensationalisation. From what I can gather the EU legislation was that we had to have CE stamped on the glasses to show the legal measurement. The crown was permitted to remain as decoration only and was not allowed to be confused with the CE mark. Our Civil servants interpreted this as CE only and Tony Blair refused to listen to the major breweries who pleaded for the crown to remain.Now the CE mark is not necessary the crown can come back to its full glory.

I also read glasses were being imported cheaply from Chechoslovakia where they were automatically stamped CE with no crown.

How many painters are still working in £sd and feet per furlong?

5 gallons, assuming that only one gallon tins are available.

How much? 5 guineas, 3 crowns and a groat.

Does he need to apply more than one coat??

I remember doing maths before decimalisation. Stuff like ‘Paint is sold in gallons. One gallon of paint costs 12/6. One pint covers three square feet. A wall is four yards long and 9ft 6in high. How many gallons of paint must the painter buy to paint the wall? How much will it cost?’

You have to use base 3, base 8, base 20 and base 12 to work that out. I can’t see it catching on. 49% of the working age population have the numeracy level of primary school children.

So, here’s a challenge. How many GN users can work that out?

I still do imperial measures and often look up conversions on Google. My favourite imperial measure is fluid ounces and pints. My go - to measure for a bag of potatoes is a quarter of a stone . My go-to measure of distance is my childhood cycle run to the riverside, or the train journey to Edinburgh.

This is good news to me. I can’t get to grips with metric measurements at all. Feet and inches are good enough until I’m 180 cms/mms ? beneath the sod.

Imagine how further inflationary changing will be.

It is an absolute nonsense and imo will not happen

It is another of Johnson’s stupidity.

Read the thread 25Avalon. The EU did not make us take the Crown mark off. The failure of the UK to repeal it's own 1988 legislation which did not allow for two marks did that.

The EU made us take it off.

They did not. That's just not true. ??‍♀️

Boris is bringing back the crown on 1 pint glasses for the Jubilee. The EU made us take it off. Katie59 pubs sell off the tap in half pint and one pint glasses, not 500ml unless it is from a bottle which again is not 500ml.

I've just realised why none of this sounded new to me. This is a paragraph from The Independent in an article from Sept 2021:

" Boris Johnson said that he would bring imperial units back to shops as part of his pitch to voters in the 2019 general election, promising “an era of generosity and tolerance towards traditional measurements". "
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/imperial-units-pounds-ounces-brexit-b1921732.html

No prizes for guessing the reason for the timing of this latest announcement on it, though.