skoobidude

I'm noticing more and more measurements are now being quoted in metric.
My biggest bugbear is speed and distance. Lots of programmes on TV quoting KPH and KM rather than MPH and miles.
Bah leave it be! The sun will never set over the English Empire.

David Lock

The Met Office shipping forecast is always fun Pressure in mm, distance in kms but usually miles and wind speeds in numbers which no one really understands.

So you would be happy to add up or multiply £ s d ?

dl

StickyMicky

I wish it bloody was, i am 32 and i was taught metric in school, and i still can not judge what somebody means when they say 50 yards, what the hell does that mean in "normal speak"

I was never taught "the old ways" when i was a kid, the fact that some old duffers kept hanging on to the old measurements just made things extra complicated.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

My eldest is 24, and a plater by trade. He was taught metric, at school, but has had to self-teach imperial, since lots is STILL done in those units. Thank goodness he's not one of these modern kids who "can't do fractions"

Kills me to buy sheet material in "metric" 2440 x1220 mm..........or, in old money, an 8' x4' sheet

Plus the French who laugh at our units, but ask them what size WHEELS or TYRES they have on their cars or pushbikes?

c_maguire

I was taught both at school and would say it is short-sighted not to have a working knowledge of both because as insignificant as we are, the USA won't be going metric any time soon.
On a practical level the only time I find the whole metric/imperial thing a nuisance is plumbing where everybody including much (if not all) of mainland Europe has a mish-mash of both options which always seems to require lots of pratting about.
There is also vehicle speedometers of course where we have both MPH and KPH on ours but our European friends often only put KPH on theirs.

Kevin

Steve vRS

Chemical Engineering:-

8m length of 6" pipe

Steve

corradoboy

Just think guys, you'll go from an average 6 to a massive 15.24

GC8

Im a bit older than you and was taught both. If its hot I understand F better than C, but I dont have the first idea what a cold F temp is, needing centigrade.

With regards to metric and the media: the BBC have been obliged to push metric for a good few years - thanks New Labia.

boomer

For me, the nice thing about imperial is that it is quick and easy to say...

"one foot"
"two pounds"
"a pint"
"three miles"
and at worst "a quarter of midget gems"

...pretty much all just one syllable for the units concerned.

Once you go frog^H^H^H^Hmetric, it is all multi-syllable...

"thirtee one pint five cen-teee-meee-turs"
"nought point nine keeeee-low-grammes"
"nought point four seven leeee-ters"
"four point eight keee-low-mee-ters"
"nought point one-one keeeee-lo-grammes de petit bon-bons"

Be efficient, be green - stick with imperial

mb

Leslie

I sincerely hope that they leave our system in imperial units. I don't see why we should slavishly be forced to adopt foreign units. I would just like to feel that we are remaining British instead of eventually being assimilated into the Eu throng and run by corrupt leaders!

Les

David Lock

"Give him an inch and he'll take a mile" rather loses something in the translation when metricised

"I can see for miles and miles and miles" (The Who) just won't be the same song!

Anyone agree - A penny for your thoughts?

I was sorry to see the back of rods, poles and perches. At least we still use hands for horses

Just my .023 Euros' worth.........

dl

Steve vRS

Saying that, there are lots of nice sympathies for keeping the dear old measures, but once you have a huge equation in fluid dynamics, metric units are much easier to manipulate

Steve

Mrfastbaz

sounds like i am a lot older than most of you was only taught imperial and it really pi***s me off when we have to buy stuff in litre, mm cm mettres and as someone said earlier kilometres we are not metric we are still imperial as far as i am concerned we buy a pint of beer not half a litre we drive in miles per hour not kilometres etc why change as some of you have said leave us alone we are not european but british

Simon C

I can do both. My parents work in feet and inches, doing engineering at college it was all mertic.

Archery kit from America is all imperial and the Korean stuff is all metric. I still use yards for shooting distances.

swiss scooby

Royal with cheese!

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

Doing the apprenticeship I am, we're being taught in metric. BUT lots of the machinery on the works is old and thus in imperial. Me, I'm ok doing the conversions and can use both metric and imperial measuring tools - **** knows what some of these 16 year olds are gonna do.

I prefer metric as I was taught it at school, imperial just seems unnecessarily complicated with 16/32/64" measurements of everything - easy to see the hard way of doing things is typically British 1/10/100/1000... much easier - end of sermon

Leslie

Quite right too!

Les

john_s

iTrader: (1)

I work for a building company... we think nothing of ordering wood in 2.4m lengths of 3" x 2".

Then you get the fun and games with some materials coming in metric approximations of the old imperial sizes... which then doesn't tie up with the imperial sized stuff, so every now and then you get a job where everything needs cutting to make it all fit.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I'd like to know where the hell they came up with 440ml sized cans of beer I can understand 500ml, as thats a nice round figure.

And why the hell do Americans have different measurements to us (eg: UK Gallon vs US Gallons of which varies depending on if its dry gallons or liquid gallons)

This is why I always preferred Canada - they use a measuring system that is at least used across most of the world (be it imperial or metric) instead of their own whacky adoptation that nobody else uses.

0ctane

iTrader: (1)

I've grown up with metric, and mathematically it's simpler to work with, and 0.1mm is much easier than 42 thousands of an inch :/

Also, a kilowatt is a kilowatt, a newton-meter is a newton-meter and a litre is a litre.
It's a ballache trying to remember if I'm converting to kilowatt from hp,bhp or PS which are all close but not the same.
When ordering a 210 litre drum, I have to try remember if it's 44 Gallons (UK) or 55 Gallons(US).

I'm all for metric, cause I have no idea if someone who weighs 16 stone is skinny as hell or fat as ****!

David Lock

Quite illogical I know but I might get a decent bit of Sirloin steak at £8 per pound but wince at getting it at £17.6 per kilo!!

dl

ScoobySteve69

iTrader: (13)

All depends how tall they are



Imperial measure is British, we`re British, leave it be. We`re already losing too much of our heritage to please Johnny Foreigner

scooby L

I had an American consulting engineer ring me the other day, asking what scale our 1:200 drawings were..I said 1 unit on the paper is 200 units on the ground...so (thinking American now) one inch equals 200 inches... OK?

She answered "so not one inch equals a foot then"

Err no...for gods sake no.... that's base 12 not base 10 ffs... you cannot mix imperial and metric scales...

OK. I think I understand ..BYE....

I shudder to think what's going to happen next

LOL

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

skoobidude

I'm quite happy to keep the metric/imperial mix as it is. It would be a shame to lose mph/miles etc.

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

Didn't an American spacecraft crash into the surface of Mars because one bunch of guys was working with kilometers and the others were working in miles LOL

Shaun

Found it

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...upd_093099.htm

Leslie

Why does that not surprise me!

Les