People can stop panicking about this Imperial measurements thing!

[Echobelly]

The proposal to reintroduce Imperial measurements is a fucking stupid idea and waste of time but Lordy, my social media is alight with people going 'OMG, they're going to force everyone to learn Imperial and it's ageist and ableist and will wreck trade and it'll be so expensive to recalibrate all out scales' etc etc.

I mean, hold your horses folks - they're allowing people to use imperial which wasn't allowed under the EU, just so they can say we can now do something we couldn't do under the EU. It's not being mandated. It's totally empty symbolism.

A handful of red-faced market stall holders will use it to make a point, no one else will care, nothing else will happen. I mean, I hate this bloody government and this ridiculous, retrograde idea but please be better than those people who don't read beyond the headlines.

Sorry, just the inaccuracy of response to this is bugging me!

Some of us never stopped using them, OP!
I do all my cooking in ounces, weigh myself in stones and pounds, all British road signs are still in miles, I measure people’s heights in feet and inches, and drink beer in half pints.

I can do both. But I don’t give a shit about buying a pound of apples or half a kilo

Some of us never stopped using them, OP!
I do all my cooking in ounces, weigh myself in stones and pounds, all British road signs are still in miles, I measure people’s heights in feet and inches, and drink beer in half pints.

I do all that (apart from drink beer!) but at work I use mm and grams all day long and would be a total mind warp to change those

I prefer imperial and I’m only 42 but it’s how I learned from my mum and gran.

And as far as I understood it, one could always display prices for one’s produce in imperial measures as long as one also did so in metric. Yet another thing the EU supposedly stopped us from doing, but they actually didn’t.

The UK has never fully adopted decimal. We still use miles not kilometers. My bra is still 36c not 93c. We have pints of milk not litres. We also use kilos. £ and pence. We use centigrade and Fahrenheit.

So you're right. All that is proposed is that those who wish to use lbs and oz, can do so without being threatened with legal action. Which is how it should be. Prosecuting people for selling goods in whichever scale their customers understand was always a bullying and intrusive idea.

Over a generation, it will change to what is taught in schools, without all the resentment.

Ffs it’s inaccurate to suggest the EU ‘banned’ the use of imperial measurements. They simply said you had to use metric alongside.

I really can’t see the problem with giving people the choice or why anyone ever got so wound up about it.

The return the imperial measurements should make things lots easier.

@CourgetteGlutTony

I can do both. But I don’t give a shit about buying a pound of apples or half a kilo

Ditto...but if apples are sold by weight rather than a price per fruit then I'd rather do the maths in the rational decimal units of metric rather than pounds and ounces.

Never stopped. It’s pounds and ounces for me all the way

Same as I also but material as yards

Nothing better than imperial measurements

Imperial measures are ridiculous, compared with the sensible metric system.

@dootball

The return the imperial measurements should make things lots easier.

What do you think it will make easier?

@Mintjulia, I do agree with you but have to ask, how is UK currency not decimal?

I realise this might seem like nit-picking but it is a genuine question.

YABU because it was never illegal to use imperial

Metric all the way for me (46)

The only imperial measurement I understand over metric is weight. When I'm happy with my weight, I'm 9st 7.

When I'm not, I'm 65 kilo

But you essentially are mandating that consumers have to understand both or face situations where they have no idea what they're buying! I have no idea about imperial and have no desire to learn an archaic, nonsensical system. Shop owners are already allowed to display imperial measures but they also have to display metric... that's how it should be! I wouldn't be buying from a shop that used imperial.

Well said OP. People just like to be outraged and there’s plenty of outrageous things this government does already so no need misrepresent this. It’s completely empty and just something they’re doing to try to please their older base.

You could always use both- EU did not prevent that

@dramalamma

But you essentially are mandating that consumers have to understand both or face situations where they have no idea what they're buying! I have no idea about imperial and have no desire to learn an archaic, nonsensical system. Shop owners are already allowed to display imperial measures but they also have to display metric... that's how it should be! I wouldn't be buying from a shop that used imperial.

No shop is going to want to lose customers so nothing will change. Metric isn’t going anywhere

I mix them up. If I'm cooking I use ounces but I cant deal with imperial measurements for liquids so always use mls. When measuring something I would always use mm, cm and metres...but I think of peoples heights in feet and inches (and prefer to weigh myself in stones and lbs.) When buying food or toiletries etc I'm used to buying in metric. When running (and driving!) I usually measure in miles.

[quote WallpaperWonder]@Mintjulia, I do agree with you but have to ask, how is UK currency not decimal?

I realise this might seem like nit-picking but it is a genuine question.[/quote]
Currency is decimal. Other units still in common usage aren't. Miles don't fit into any sensible mathematical base do they? Inches to feet is duodecimal, then a factor of 3 for yards, then 220 yards in a furlong and 8 furlongs in a mile....

The exact values of yards and miles is now defined in terms of metres anyway though.

This shit show of a government really are scraping the bottom of the barrel to cover up the fact that Brexit is a fucking nightmare.

A handful of red-faced market stall holders will use it to make a point,

Well that's nice of you to say so isn't it? What's the colour of their faces got to do with it?

I hadn't heard this op - but I only understand imperial for weights. The greengrocer I worked in as a Saturday job sold in pounds and ounces and I cannot get my head around kilos!

And surely shops sell in weights their customers understand? Would be pointless to alienate paying customers.