Very dull Q. Imperial or metric and how old are you?

[IveGotASongThatllGetOnYNerves]

I'm 47 and have never got the hang of metric even though I wasn't even born when the UK introduced the metric system (apparently in 1965)

I find this fascinating actually. All my education was in metric but I run in miles, weigh myself in stones, bake in pounds and ounces (although gradually converting there as so many recipies are now only in grams) and ask the hairdresser for an inch off.

I've noticed that my teen DC also estimate distance/length in feet and inches.

Why have we been so resistant to the change even though, in theory, most of us have never know anything except metric?

I'm in my 60s, can't really do metric for most things....except dressmaking and curtains, I work in metres!! No idea why, I roughly know what a metre is in length and fabric.

Imperial for height, weight, cooking, mileage, mph and so on. Although I only do temperatures in degrees C, no idea what the Fahrenheit equivalent is at all.

54 and prefer metric. It's so much easier. I did live in Germany for a few years so that may have influenced me.

I do use imperial where necessary though.

30
Metric for everything except Miles for long distances.
But i work in the sciences where everything is measured and expressed in metric so that might by why. I can convert to roughly between metric and imperial for length/height and weight because I know most people use imperial for those.

Metric for everything. I am 53. I find imperial very primitive and approximate. In every serious science/knowledge context the system used will be metric. I wish imperial would be abolished. Even the name irks me.

imperial for most things,
55,
my map my walk is in km and every time i need to google what it is in miles

I prefer imperial, I’m in my fifties and remember the change though I was tiny. I think it’s because my Mother taught me imperial. DH is happy with either, DS gets massively frustrated with me, you are so last century Mum.

Both. I'm 38.

Height and weight (inc weighing ingredients) imperial,
Measuring lengths cm/metres.
Distance-miles.

In my fifties and cannot get my head round metric, even though I remember metric being used at school. Imperial all the way.

50. Mixture And it's a divide between home and work.

Parents grew up with imperial and used to talk in imperial all the time.
One of my first memories is being really confused when my mum asked the hairdresser to take a couple of inches off my hair length.

Use metric every day (and had a job for 15 years where I measured things in metric).

Am 54 and, like many here, I use both. I remember thinking how easy the metric system was for calculations when I learned it at school - everything in tens and hundreds - but I just couldn't get a SENSE of it. I was too used to visual aspect of imperial measurements and of how the weight of pounds and stones felt in my hands. And of course my sweeties came in quarters which was very, very important!

Both
I work in construction where there is a significant overlap - drawings are completed in metric but material sizes are a mix and clients often refer to imperial - we often get a mix in the same document.
It's fine I happily switch between them as long as they've written the units I'll work it out.

I'm 42

I do metric for most things but looking at houses, I could never work out how big rooms were on floor plans if in metres! I’m 58.

50s, imperial, but can do metric. Just find imperial much more intuitive. 2oz is easier to remember than 50gm or 60gm, and 5'4" much easier than whatever it is in cm.

Metric for temperature, though - but I can understand F and know that 100F is bloody hot.

The only thing I use Imperial for is sewing (quarter inch seam, a yard of fabric etc.). Probably influenced by American quilters.

I’m 53 and was taught exclusively in metric.

I find people giving temperatures in Fahrenheit bewildering.
“A fever of 108”. No idea.

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman
Cross post!

Imperial for me, I think. I don't understand kg in terms of weight. But use grams in cooking. Just depends on the recipe. But always weigh myself in stone and happy to measure ingredients in oz. but I'm never understood ounces when it came to using baby formula. So .. I guess I use both. For different things. It's easy enough to convert anyway using google.

Oh, and I'm 36.

The UK came within a whisker of going metric in the early 1900s.

When I started school teachers said we would be the first year to have gone through school entirely metric - the year above use had to switch.

Dad is Italian, so it wasn't really a "thing".

I have no time for anyone younger than me who claims they "never got it". Although I have even less time for people younger than me who claim to have never gotten over decimalisation.

Out if interest is American and British imperial the same?

For feet and inches, yes. They only tend to use lbs for people's weight, not stones (but the lbs are the same.) Recipes tend to be proportionate by cups rather than weight.

There are some differences in liquids - fluid ounces and the number in a pint are different, I think. Can't remember the details.

@EBearhug

Out if interest is American and British imperial the same?

For feet and inches, yes. They only tend to use lbs for people's weight, not stones (but the lbs are the same.) Recipes tend to be proportionate by cups rather than weight.

There are some differences in liquids - fluid ounces and the number in a pint are different, I think. Can't remember the details.

WE have 20 fl. oz to a pint they have 16. So pints and gallons are different. We changed during Queen Anne, and they made a big thing about rejecting the measures of tyrants.

Just leave that there

Ah, like Webster's spelling. :-)

I'm 61 and use both.