Metrication

[Over The Hill]

On the news we had the usual snow report about some area "having eight inches overnight" (which always amuses me), but then I was thinking about that fact that we are still using inches nearly 40 years after we were supposed to go metric.

My school went metric in 1971 when I started secondary school and we all learnt metric measurements from then on. I am 50 so at a guess everyone younger than me learn metric and everyone older learnt imperial measurements.

The only thing I still do is work out my car's fuel in miles per gallon and I still weigh myself in stones and lbs.
I use metric for everything else.

It does drive me mad buying fabric and the shop still uses inches and I did go in a carpet shop where half the stock was priced in £x per square meter and half in £x per square yard.

My kids, who are in their teens really do not know what an inch is and have not got a clue about any imperial measurement perhaps apart from miles which we seem to have kept.

Clearly metric is the easy one to use as it is all in base 10 rather than the silly 14 ounces is one pound and 16 pounds in a stone daftness.

Have you all converted or are you still living in imperial land and converting your petrol back to gallons?

 

[Yellow Fang]

I'm still amused that cock size still seems to measured in inches, even among adolescents. You'd have thought if anything was better measured in mms, it would be that.

 

[tyred]

I did both systems at school, I have no real preference tbh. Mental arithmetic and working out fractions, etc has always been something I am good at so I do tend to use imperial measurements just for my own amusement but I don't really care.

What does annoy me is when people use metric for something that was designed to imperial standards, i.e. I refuse to have a 25.4mm seatpost in my bike, it is a one inch seatpost.  



Edit: having said that, for whatever reason, if someone tells me something is X feet long, I find that easier to visualise than saying it in metres.

 

[Davidc]

On the news we had the usual snow report about some area "having eight inches overnight" (which always amuses me), but then I was thinking about that fact that we are still using inches nearly 40 years after we were supposed to go metric.

My school went metric in 1971 when I started secondary school and we all learnt metric measurements from then on. I am 50 so at a guess everyone younger than me learn metric and everyone older learnt imperial measurements.

The only thing I still do is work out my car's fuel in miles per gallon and I still weigh myself in stones and lbs.
I use metric for everything else.

It does drive me mad buying fabric and the shop still uses inches and I did go in a carpet shop where half the stock was priced in £x per square meter and half in £x per square yard.

My kids, who are in their teens really do not know what an inch is and have not got a clue about any imperial measurement perhaps apart from miles which we seem to have kept.

Clearly metric is the easy one to use as it is all in base 10 rather than the silly 14 ounces is one pound and 16 pounds in a stone daftness.

Have you all converted or are you still living in imperial land and converting your petrol back to gallons?

I'm older, at 58, and learnt both at primary school, with imperial as a footnote item in maths up to O level (where a couple of questions were still guaranteed to be imperial but with all the necessary conversions provided)

I can't understand why anyone still uses or wants to use imperial measures. They're rubbish. Not much option with miles and mph and road signs still use an antiquated unit which I believe is equal to 914.4mm.

I generally have to convert to metric to understand what I'm doing or how much of something I'm buying, but the one I really can't get my head around at all is farenheight (how do you spell it?) which I have to convert before I have any clue about whether something's hot or cold. The only exception is that my brain still uses pints for beer and cider....

One thing that still occasionally causes me to make errors is that I was one of the last to learn A level physics using the cgs system, metric but not SI. Obsolete units aren't confined to imperial, though cgs did at least use base 10 for everything.

 

[Bokonon]

Clearly metric is the easy one to use as it is all in base 10 rather than the silly 14 ounces is one pound and 16 pounds in a stone daftness.

In this instance, yes. However, if you use 16oz to the pound and 14lb to the stone then there is nothing wrong with imperial in many applications .

 

[ELL]

I was thinking this this morning when i was listening to the radio and they did the high temps in 'F and then the lows in 'C. Highs of 50 and lows of 0 did seem a little odd.

 

[marinyork]

There are no god-given bases or units in the universe. I use both systems. I don't know why people get so hung up about base ten but there you go. I use miles for long distances and cm, mm and feet and inches for short distances. I use pints for liquids.

 

[Piemaster]

Edit: having said that, for whatever reason, if someone tells me something is X feet long, I find that easier to visualise than saying it in metres.

Me too mostly. If I'm actually measuring something metric everytime, but if asked now I'm sat about 6' from the fireplace.
Voumes in metric as I find I can visualise 1m3 quite easily.

And I'm a child of the metric generation so was never taught anything else.

 

[Over The Hill]

In this instance, yes. However, if you use 16oz to the pound and 14lb to the stone then there is nothing wrong with imperial in many applications .

If you use (and are used to) imperial then it is fine in a small range where you say keep in lb or keep in oz or whatever.
Where it falls down is when you go up by x100 or need lots of small amounts in a big amount.

Imperial
How many 4" pieces can I get from a 5 foot length of wood?
Metric
How many 100mm pieces can I get from a 1.5m length of wood.

Now the imperial way have inches and feet to work on, so you need to convert one to the other so 5x12 =60 inches and then find how many 4" in 60.
Metric needs no sum in the process - you just call 1.5m 1500mm and you have the information you need.

 

[Over The Hill]

but the one I really can't get my head around at all is farenheight (how do you spell it?) which I have to convert before I have any clue about whether something's hot or cold.

I kept with F instead of C for years but then someone told me the following
28 is 82 (and it is hot above that point)
16 is 61 (and it is a bit chilly below that point)

And of course 0 is blimmin cold!

Once I had this I got on OK and now have a feel for a temperature from the number by if it is more or less than 0 16 or 28. Simples!

 

[Hilldodger]

Bloody modern measurements. I mean, how do you calculate 'Sh*tloads' or 'a gob full' in metric.

It'll never catch on.

 

[snorri]

Have you all converted or are you still living in imperial land and converting your petrol back to gallons?

I've accepted petrol being sold in litres, but measure consumption in miles per litre.
It's a bit frustrating to find some companies still selling milk in pints as it makes it difficult to calculate which is the better buy when sold alongside milk in metric measures.

 

[tyred]

 
How many 100mm pieces can I get from a 1.5m length of wood.

Now the imperial way have inches and feet to work on, so you need to convert one to the other so 5x12 =60 inches and then find how many 4" in 60.

I actually enjoy working things like that out in my head and don't understand why people have problems with it. 


I used to say that the metric system is for people who can't count properly!

 

[Hilldodger]

Oh, and my Honda is 26.396309795890534 fluid onces and not 750cc.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I'm in manufacturing and I've found that there are more opportunities for mistakes with metrication, for example figures like 6m and 90mm can be miscommunicated as 6.9m, you don't get that kind of mix up with feet and inches. Not that many, apart from some of the old boys, use imperial any more. Up until a few years ago we still used to get the odd architect's drawing in with feet and inches, still got the old imperial scale-rule for just such an emergency, they were the ones still using CP112 when we'd all changed to BS5268-3 too, I ask you, tsk...