Metric or Imperial? Or both?

[nickyboy]

Do you climb in metres as well, then record it in feet?

Funny, innit....

I'm kinda happy to think about ride distances in km (also ok with miles) but climbing in metres is a bit of a struggle to visualise and, if I have a "metres climbed" I will mentally convert it into feet. I need ft/mile climbing to get a grip on how hard a ride is. Maybe I'm just old

 

[Brains]

On a related serious note - I was taught all in metric as I am - by the sounds of it - 10 years younger than you. However, you pick stuff up, so I refer to height of people in feet and inches, and obviously distance and speed in miles and miles per hour. I've never done weight in stones, although a lot of people my age do, OH included. Any and all use of imperial measurements annoys the kid no end, although she generally accepts miles and mph.

We should really make an effort to change properly.

I think you now have to be pushing 60 to actually have been taught in imperial measurements.
I seem to remember it was PM John Major that stopped all the road signs being changed to KM and the rest of the metric roll out that should have happened decades ago.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I think you now have to be pushing 60 to actually have been taught in imperial measurements.
I seem to remember it was PM John Major that stopped all the road signs being changed to KM and the rest of the metric roll out that should have happened decades ago.

Nope people now in their early 50's were taught imperial as well as metric.

 

[Brains]

Nope people now in their early 50's were taught imperial as well as metric.

I remember the announcement in class that we would be switching to metric.
All the bits of rope that were a yard long were ceremoniously removed and replaced with bits of rope that were a meter long.
Old wooden rulers in inches were removed and the time table went to 24hr clock.

I'm guessing the year was 1970'ish
We also stopped being taught to do maths in £.S.D, which was wonderful!
(Unfortunately a couple of years too late for me though, I can still mentally convert Pounds into Shillings and Denarius)

 

[presta]

I'm exactly 1 johanngeogenstadt lachter tall, weigh 289575 mujandies (which is about 0.738 large sacks), and cycle at about 1.8 yojanas per hour. The petrol consumption on the car is about 125x10^5 m^-2

 

[raleighnut]

I think you now have to be pushing 60 to actually have been taught in imperial measurements

Guilty as charged, my impressive One and Six pocket money turned into a miserable 7 1/2 new pence.

 

[DaveReading]

The only thing I found I needed to know as a young engineer in the 1970s was that one millimetre = 40 thou (more or less).

 

[slowmotion]

I'm SI except for miles.
BTUs are just plain bonkers.

 

[pjd57]

Bit of both.
There really should have been a Metrication day , same as the Decimalisation day when our money changed.
Chaos and confusion for a month or so and then it's history.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I'm guessing the year was 1970'ish
)

Clearly not all schools so some now in their 40's were still taught both. I'll have to ask my mother a retired primary school teacher to see what she remembers. Certainly in my school we'd convert between imperial and metric.

 

[Brains]

Clearly not all schools so some now in their 40's were still taught both. I'll have to ask my mother a retired primary school teacher to see what she remembers. Certainly in my school we'd convert between imperial and metric.

That would mean Imperial was still being taught in the 1980's ?
I'd really hope not.

But then again, given the current political situation, they may still have been teaching the pink bits on the map were part of the British Empire, and Johnny Foreigner was a "picaninny with a watermelon smile"

(Boris Johnson, born 1964, therefore went to junior School 1970-75, and so may have been still taught Imperial measurements, £SD, and Pink bits on the map.)

 

[classic33]

That would mean Imperial was still being taught in the 1980's ?
I'd really hope not.

But then again, given the current political situation, they may still have been teaching the pink bits on the map were part of the British Empire, and Johnny Foreigner was a "picaninny with a watermelon smile"

(Boris Johnson, born 1964, therefore went to junior School 1970-75, and so may have been still taught Imperial measurements, £SD, and Pink bits on the map.)

Still using them in 1982, at school

 

[Brains]

Bit of both.
There really should have been a Metrication day , same as the Decimalisation day when our money changed.
Chaos and confusion for a month or so and then it's history.

There was.
1st January 1975
(However it was not pushed by the government of the day as it was thought to be unpopular)

 

[Brains]

There was.
1st January 1975
(However it was not pushed by the government of the day as it was thought to be unpopular)

Ireland had a final 'metrication date' in 2005.

 

[Brains]

Still using them in 1982, at school

I looked this up, officially Imperial measurements were finally withdrawn from UK schools in July 1974.
From that point metric was compulsory teaching and imperial optional.

I had no idea that Imperial was still being used into the 1980's, it explains why we still have so many issues with measurements in the maritime world.
By the look of things there was a resurgence of the Imperial system in the 1990's led by the "metric martyrs" who were typically Euro-sceptics.