Imperial Measurements in the U.K.

NIrelandGillian said:

It has, that's right, although I don't know which system they use in everyday conversation. When they went metric in the South - at the same time as the UK, I was sharing a flat in Dublin with a friend with the landlady on the premises and she was very suspicious of the new system - thought we were paying her less money for rent - or maybe it was the use of the phone - than we should have been. I know if I'm told a weight or distance or height in the imperial system I can automatically tell if it's heavy or light, far or near, tall or short. With metric it means nothing until I convert it. Gillian

Click to expand...

Sometimes ppl have to keep the two systems going simultaneously in their minds....

The metric system was rammed down the throats of the Brits as part of our conformity to the EU.
The UK government weren't satisfied with just launching it as a new system in schools, new engineering projects, or perhaps displaying it alongside the old Imperial system so people could get used to it. No they enforced it with a vindictive religious zeal.
Many traders were fined and some imprisoned for daring to weigh fruit in pounds instead of Kilos.
It also made things very confusing for the elderly.

Francis Drake said:

The metric system was rammed down the throats of the Brits as part of our conformity to the EU.
The UK government weren't satisfied with just launching it as a new system in schools, new engineering projects, or perhaps displaying it alongside the old Imperial system so people could get used to it. No they enforced it with a vindictive religious zeal.
Many traders were fined and some imprisoned for daring to weigh fruit in pounds instead of Kilos.
It also made things very confusing for the elderly.

Click to expand...

You guys over there in the UK just don't seem to have a tax-cutting tradition of conservatism: if taxes were truly cut significantly, the self-perpetuating bureaucratic busybodies that persecute ppl behaving reasonably wouldn't have their salaries paid; better if they worked at something productive instead.

faroukfarouk said:

You guys over there in the UK just don't seem to have a tax-cutting tradition of conservatism: if taxes were truly cut significantly, the self-perpetuating bureaucratic busybodies that persecute ppl behaving reasonably wouldn't have their salaries paid; better if they worked at something productive instead.

Click to expand...

Agreed but-
You guys over there might have had a tax cutting conservatism in the past, but like our Conservative Party, the average Republican is no better than our Labour and your Dems when it comes to big government!

Big government is a curse on society, both sides of the pond need to drain the swamp.

Francis Drake said:

Agreed but-
You guys over there might have had a tax cutting conservatism in the past, but like our conservatives here, the average Republican is little better than socialists when it comes to big government!
Both sides of the pond need to drain the swamp.

Click to expand...

Sounds good...

I think it went wrong when we stopped using groats personally

The-Doctor said:

I think it went wrong when we stopped using groats personally

Click to expand...

Try as I may, I just couldn't make sense of this.

Then on the third time of reading, I realised it said "groats" and not goats.
Must get my eyes checked.

faroukfarouk said:

Sometimes ppl have to keep the two systems going simultaneously in their minds....

Click to expand...

I can do that with money but not with measurements and weights. If I'm told I'm a certain height or weight I ask for the information 'in English'!

Gillian

Francis Drake said:

Try as I may, I just couldn't make sense of this.

Then on the third time of reading, I realised it said "groats" and not goats.
Must get my eyes checked.

Click to expand...

Goats works too if we are talking haggling

NIrelandGillian said:

I can do that with money but not with measurements and weights. If I'm told I'm a certain height or weight I ask for the information 'in English'!

Gillian

Click to expand...

That reminds me of my old Protestant pastor. We've had metric in Australia for years now, but he didn't like it.

Whenever he made a reference to measuring lengths, it was something along the lines of "About three feet long I suppose, or whatever that is in French..."

Why French I wonder?

Gillian

I'm not sure if you're being serious or joking, but the metric system was developed by the French and adopted by the French Revolutionary Assembly in 1795.

Napoleon spread it around, so it owes a lot to the French. It's a lot easier to use than the Foot/ Pounds system when it comes to science and technology.

But that's why he said "French...". He didn't like metric, being old-school and brought up with pounds and ounces, feet and inches, miles and yards, gallons and pints etc.

The Metric System

Silverback said:

I never thought of "Pints" but other than that I have never heard a Brit use anything but metric.

Click to expand...

We still use miles on signposts and things...although on news programmes etc they tend to quote things in kms. A lot of younger people seem to use kms too...but that may be because of using smartphones, pcs etc. About three years ago my husband and I were walking in the countryside...we'd walked miles and asked a young passer-by how far the next village was. He said about 2 kms! I thought, that's a lot of good to me lol But still, at least I knew it was somewhat shorter than two miles!

I still use stones, pounds, feet, inches etc etc...but of course I and many others were brought up with that system. I smply can't visualise metric measurements. In shops I have to do frantic calculations to convert millimetre or cenimetres to Imperial, otherwise I haven't a clue how long or wide something is. Anyhow I think Imperial measurements is a very sensible way of doing things. It was based on something solid, not artificial. That is, a foot is roughly the length of a foot, a yard I think, is a pace (but it might be based on something else, can't remember). A hand as in measuring heights of horses, was the length of a hand and so on and so forth. OK, rather hit and miss until they standardised the feet and so on...but good as a'rule of thumb'. And of course, you can see where that expression comes from!

I know they say metric is easier for, I don't know engineering or science. However, my husband was a draughtsman and had no problem working in thousandths of inches.

Oh, that's another thing..what's wrong with horsepower..perfectly sensible and understandable..and pounds per square inch..easy to understand. Bars means absolutely nothing to me. (Apart from the one's one might drink in lol)

NIrelandGillian said:

It has, that's right, although I don't know which system they use in everyday conversation. When they went metric in the South - at the same time as the UK, I was sharing a flat in Dublin with a friend with the landlady on the premises and she was very suspicious of the new system - thought we were paying her less money for rent - or maybe it was the use of the phone - than we should have been. I know if I'm told a weight or distance or height in the imperial system I can automatically tell if it's heavy or light, far or near, tall or short. With metric it means nothing until I convert it. Gillian

Click to expand...

I know exactly what you mean! I simply can't judge or estimate anything in metric.

tansy said:

I still use stones, pounds, feet, inches etc etc...but of course I and many others were brought up with that system. I smply can't visualise metric measurements. In shops I have to do frantic calculations to convert millimetre or cenimetres to Imperial, otherwise I haven't a clue how long or wide something is.

Click to expand...

I was brought up with feet, inches and so on, and the only thing I really know is that it's 2.5 cm = 1 inch.
But I'm hopeless at gauging distances, widths, height etc. I don't have a clue, or a mental picture, of how high 20 foot is, how wide 37 inches might be or what 14m represents. The only thing I can really do is imagining myself lying down in a certain space, and then I could say "that's bigger than 5 foot 4."
Not much help really! Lol

-----

Strong in Him said:

I was brought up with feet, inches and so on, and the only thing I really know is that it's 2.5 cm = 1 inch.
But I'm hopeless at gauging distances, widths, height etc. I don't have a clue, or a mental picture, of how high 20 foot is, how wide 37 inches might be or what 14m represents. The only thing I can really do is imagining myself lying down in a certain space, and then I could say "that's bigger than 5 foot 4."
Not much help really! Lol[/QUOTE

Ah, but can you imagine a 12 inch ruler? Then all you have to do for 37 inches is imaginethree 12 inch rulers end to end, plus one inch. But I have to say with longer measurements I do similar to you. My husband's six foot two, so I just picture him plus or minus lol. Also if I know roughly the height of a room...say nine foot, then I just visualise rooms on top of each other for anything higher. It's only rough, but gives me an idea. Trouble is of cours, because the UK has been using metric for decades now, ANY measurements get harder
Can you imagine though, if once we leave the EU we suddenly went back to Imperial and also using poinds, shillings and pence (not I'm sure that this would happen) all the youngstsers would be totally mystified! And we old 'uns would have the last laugh at those young people who think we're not getting with the times!

Click to expand...

tansy said:

Can you imagine though, if once we leave the EU we suddenly went back to Imperial and also using poinds, shillings and pence (not I'm sure that this would happen) all the youngstsers would be totally mystified! And we old 'uns would have the last laugh at those young people who think we're not getting with the times!

Click to expand...

Boris did say, at one point, that he wanted this to happen.
Maybe not £s shillings and pence; but some market stall holders were once prosecuted for not dealing in metric weights. I.e. they were selling 1/2 pound of carrots, or whatever. There was some outrage over the EU telling us what weights/measures we should use in our own country.

Strong in Him said:

I was brought up with feet, inches and so on, and the only thing I really know is that it's 2.5 cm = 1 inch.
But I'm hopeless at gauging distances, widths, height etc. I don't have a clue, or a mental picture, of how high 20 foot is, how wide 37 inches might be or what 14m represents. The only thing I can really do is imagining myself lying down in a certain space, and then I could say "that's bigger than 5 foot 4."
Not much help really! Lol

Click to expand...

I was also brought with two feet - lol

If you use a particular unit of measure regularly, then you will get used to what it means. From a practical point of view, it is helpful if the units are such that the numbers are in the range of about 1 to a few hundred.

So, in Imperial, we use ft and in for a person's height, but miles when driving/cycling/running. The difficulty with Imperial is converting between 'ranges'. 12 inches in a ft, 3 ft = 1 yard. How many inches in a mile? 1,760? - no that's yards in a mile. With metric, this is much easier. But you still need a 'feel' for whatever it is actually means. So, if (hypothetically for me) you are jogging home and have 1 mile to go, that means 5 minutes (OK, if you are Paula Ratcliffe). Or cycling: 4 minutes (3 minutes down hill, 2 minutes down hill in Bath).

Yes, this is how I get the 'feel' for weights and measurements...I know roughly how long it takes me to walk, say two miles or how many apples make roughly a pound. We lived in Belgium and Luxembourgfor seven years, yet I could never get the 'feel' for metric measurements. I always have to convert.
Different, I suppose if you've gron up and learnt metric in school and get used to handling those things.

HantsUK said:

So, if (hypothetically for me) you are jogging home and have 1 mile to go, that means 5 minutes (OK, if you are Paula Ratcliffe). Or cycling: 4 minutes (3 minutes down hill, 2 minutes down hill in Bath).

Click to expand...

Or 20 minutes if hobbling quickly with a walking stick!
I'd smash it on my mobility scooter.