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It would be fine with me if they totally switched to metric, except for a pint of beer. It just doesn't sound right to say you're going for a '.56 litre'!
I could easily get used to whatever my bra and waist size is in cm. Km is easy as well.
So is farthing, Ha'penny, penny, thrupenny bit, sixpence, shilling, two bob bit, half crown, ten bob note, pound note. But we didn't keep that did we?? Oh, forgot, way before you were even born so you wouldn't know about that, would you?
My height is in feet and inches, my weight is in stones and pounds and my temperature is in fahrenheit. In my car my velocity is measured in MPH and in a public hostelry I consume my scrumpy by the pint and my spirits by the 6th of a gill.
Apart from that I should think that pretty much everything else is metric decimal.
Last edited by Baldrick; 05-21-2013 at 12:51 PM..
Reason: ... to edit.
So is farthing, Ha'penny, penny, thrupenny bit, sixpence, shilling, two bob bit, half crown, ten bob note, pound note. But we didn't keep that did we?? Oh, forgot, way before you were even born so you wouldn't know about that, would you?
Not before my time, however. I used to get 1/- pocket money on a Saturday. 6d for the pictures and 6d for sweeties.
I remember the day we changed over to the new currency. I was 16 at the time and it was surprisingly easy. Much better at school too. You try multiplying £1 4/7d by 19 or working out 17% of £11 10/5d
It just doesn't sound right to say you're going for a '.56 litre'!
I know that is done mainly for laughs, but most people would eventually say they are "going for a beer" if the pint was to go, a lot of people buy bottled stuff anyway. As long as there is a defined glass size, they could sell it as exactly the same amount. At least the UK doesn't use quarts very much, a pointless imperial measurement used by the USA.
I remember growing up with Fahrenheit and Celsius both being on the weather report, but now they just use Celsius. The biggest problem with switching are the people who refuse to use metric at all, like the guy who refused to use scales that showed the weight of food in metric. As the older population dies off there is much less resistance. Then there is the cost of updating the thousands of road signs.
Metric is just so much easier to use, it scales up and down easily. None of those awkward 14/16/5280 conversions
Not before my time, however. I used to get 1/- pocket money on a Saturday. 6d for the pictures and 6d for sweeties.
I remember the day we changed over to the new currency. I was 16 at the time and it was surprisingly easy. Much better at school too. You try multiplying £1 4/7d by 19 or working out 17% of £11 10/5d
Metric might be more efficient but it does lack a certain charm!
Following similar logic would some have us learning and speaking Esperanto?
Actually that's a perfect analogy. I've had a couple of arguments over the past few months with people on CD all of whom are saying metric is better, without any real ability to articulate just what is better (other than being based on 10^N which I can argue would be better served being based on 2^N since there is less conversion for computing and most people don't do complex math in their heads).
My experience is did some imperial at school, primarily metric, University was physics so SI, Army was metric kind of we still had training forced marches in miles though (although that changed from the day I entered, to the day I left, including a 19.3 km forced march at one point), but we provided positioning (for navigation and supporting fire) via kilometers, my PhD was again SI, then I came to the US, and was forced to really learn Fahrenheit which was not something I was familiar with (inches/feet/yards/miles sure, Ounces/Pounds sure, Pints sure fl.oz, degrees F, pretty shaky, quarts was easy 1/4 gallon or 2 pints). I just had to get my head around the fact that when I was drinking 10 pints US I was actually only getting 8 UK, so I needed another couple just to maintain correct levels of blood in my alcohol system.
Ultimately I don't care, but I do consider that if there is a change there should be some added benefit to the country changing. Miles/yards/feet are all pretty easy and have enough separation so you can use easy fractions (1/2, 1 1/4 miles, 3 1/2 yard, 2 1/2 foot), so there's not much gain in moving those over for all you can say "Oh but 250m is so much easier than 1/4km, BS, 1/4km is easier to say (one quarter click, v.s two hundred and fifty meters). However both systems are flawed, and relative, we've just done a lot more finding the question to get the metric answer in most physical things than doing the same for Imperial/Standard. As an example the SI Meter is defined as the distance light will travel in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second... OK so what's the speed of light... would it be a surprise to find out it's 299,792,458 m/s?
Yes but what's the advantage of using miles instead of km? We switched without any problems. I doubt many hear would want to go back to miles. It's just so logical, one metre is 100cm, one kilometre is 1,000 m.
Nobody thinks in metres. We think in feet and yards when using road distances so there really is no point in us changing. We are not connected to Europe so don't need to change for efficiency. I mean would you change to miles? No. So why should we?
Britain took the decision to make the switchover a slow one. So while people still drive miles, they buy petrol in liters. While they still drink a pint of beer (20 ounces), they buy sugar in kilos. Older people may still feel comfortable in feet and inches but anyone under the age of 45 will not have learned the imperial system at school.
Why do they not switch miles to kilometers and pints to liters (beer only)? Presumably because there is no burning need to do so.
I learn't feet and inches.
We measure our height in feet and inches.
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