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!

I'm 28 and grew up using pounds and oz's

@RandomLondoner

That's the second post that's made the point that an imperial-sized unit looks clumsy when expressed in metric.

Why would you do that? Why would you not just sell things in simple metric quantities?

Are you suggesting that pubs sell beer by the litre, instead of by the pint? You're going to have a major alcohol problem on your hands!

@NeonJellyBaby

There are now three generations that have grown up only learning and using metric measurements. Why should we go backwards and do things differently to the rest of the world just to appease the frothing gammons and baby boomers who want to drag us all back to the 1950’s?

But that's not true, is it? You've seen plenty of thirty-somethings on this thread who have grown up using imperial measurements, particularly when baking or measuring height.

@lannistunut

The government only get away with this bollocks because the portion of the electorate they are appealing to don't understand.

Same as the blue passports we were not allowed, apart from the fact we were allowed them all along!

When people said "it would be nice if we had our blue passports back", most weren't specifically thinking of the colour. Instead they were on about going back to the quite substantial passport we used to have rather than the flimsy things we have now.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

Well i'm flummoxed. I have never been able to find an easy conversion from the IMPERIAL peck and bushel to the metric equivalent. Consequently I struggle to order seed potatoes and corn and I can only wonder how Jeremy Clarkeson does his - by shouting loudly and pointing I suppose. 🤷‍♀️

And then going up to Manchester to present Who Wants to Be A Millionaire so that he can afford his next mistake.

I remember a Top Gear special where they were stuck in gridlock in an African city. People were roaming the traffic jams selling bananas. Jeremy didn't quite understand the purchasing power of the local currency so accidentally bought the entire basket.

So why is it so important to have only imperial given?
Gawd knows,

And in reality. How many vendors are even going to do it.
Just after Brexit M&S dropped metric from kids hangers, so they said 3-4 3ft 2 or something. I complained I don't have a clue I measure in cm also red book is cm. I noticed the return of the cm a few days ago 3-4 104cm / 3ft 2.
So I'm guessing im not alone.

'DdraigGoch'

But pubs DO sell beer by the pint! They never stopped!

In some round here you can still do a yard of ale.

Zero issues no problem.

So.. what actually is the problem?

Gawd clothes sizes and shoe sizes are a while other ball game!

There seem to be about 20 different systems in use and even the ones using the same it's usually not the same size!

Let's stick with flagons for now on the thread!

@dootball

The return the imperial measurements should make things lots easier.

How is any measuring system which is not a base 10 system easier?

@Chloemol

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

It's much easier to work out how many metres there are in 2.5km than the number of yards in 2.5 miles....

Can you work out 3lb 6oz X 13 is how many lb, in your head with no trouble?

How do you go about it, are there any methods to make it easy?

And in the end shops could and did use yards etc.

This is about them being able to only show that and not metric as well.

Why????

You gain nothing and remove something that is the way loads of people know.

@NiceGerbil

I'm pleased you don't want to change time! When people on the telly do that it never ends well 😀

I suppose the but I really don't get is why this is important for the govt right now?

Shops can already price in lb etc.

Why is it so important that they be allowed not to show the metric? I mean just seems unbearably petty and also I don't understand why it's so important to people.

On units the metric /SI just is simply unquestionably better. Easier.

I know people are used to lb but we're going back decades since it changed. And recipe books here still come in both I think.

We still have pints and miles and all that stuff. We don't display km on signs next to miles.

I mean it's all fine.

Pushing for imperial ONLY is about making some kind of point. If it's there as well then I mean that's fine. And from this thread it's about a really small amount of instances IE buying some carrots for dinner. Not about anything else.

So why is it so important to have only imperial given?

And in reality. How many vendors are even going to do it.

I agree.

I grew up in the 70s when metric was taught alongside imperial.

I use mainly metric, it's far simpler than imperial.

OK, I still do speed in mph, because we never used metric on the roads, and I can judge speed better in mph.

I use metric in pretty much everything else though.

Far too many people have been taught metric to ditch it completely. Just have both measurements shown.

Frankly, though, going back to imperial measurements is ridiculous. It's all part of this rose tinted looking back at the past.

It's time we put that all behind us to make the best future we can, now.

I bet most of the people who claim to only use Imperial don't.

Unless there's anyone doggedly only using foot-pounds or BTUs for energy...

Can you work out 3lb 6oz X 13 is how many lb, in your head with no trouble?

I'll have a go to excersize my brain cells!

3lb × 13 = 39lb
6oz X 13 = 78oz, 78 -16 = 62-16=46-16=30-16=14 = 4lb 14oz
39lb + 4lb = 43 lb 14oz

43-14=29,29-14=15-14=1
3st 1lb 14oz

Done in my head step by step, I did try to divide 78 by 16 but couldn't do it without the calculator, and when I did I wasn't sure about the fraction left over, so went for taking away instead.

Now I'm trying to figure out what the heck you'd buy 3st 1lb and 14oz off.
Thanks for the challenge!

Ludicrous to suggest going backwards into a system that the last people to have been really taught are pushing retirement.
Construction moved to metric years ago, your kitchen is in mm, go tell me the width of your units in inches.

Given most people now buy milk in supermarket cartons I actually question why we are hanging on to pints for milk, who knows how many fluid oz are in a pint?

Beer I can understand that changing could end up with a lot of drunk people. But then people managed to cope going from gills to ml.
But then what the heck is a gill, how did it relate to fluid oz or pints 🤔

I’m more comfortable measuring size in metric but weight in imperial. Probably because I did more baking and cooking with my nan and mum at home but learned maths at school! However, I have good sense of a mile but not a Km! I’m wondering if my generation (40’s) is one of the last to have been raised with both side by side and younger people will know metric by default.

Going by this thread I think a lot of people including younger people use imperial for baking, because that was the way granny taught them.

However it's one thing measuring out a lb of flour it's a different thing when you are trying to calculate in lbs for multiple things.

As demonstrated above its not easy.

@NiceGerbil

'DdraigGoch'

But pubs DO sell beer by the pint! They never stopped!

In some round here you can still do a yard of ale.

Zero issues no problem.

So.. what actually is the problem?

The poster I was quoting was moaning about metric conversions of imperial units not being round numbers. So I was just pointing out that if beer was sold in round litres, asking the barman for "a half" would get you rather more pissed than it does now.

How is any measuring system which is not a base 10 system easier?
Whenever you want to divide a distance by three for a start. Much easier with base 12 than base 10.

Why would changing to metric on beer end up with lots of drunk people 😳

How many of these people who profess to use only imperial measurements work in a scientific or engineering field?

None. But the majority of jobs aren’t in those fields.

@Blossomtoes

None. But the majority of jobs aren’t in those fields.

But they're generally well paid jobs. The sort that are traditionally taken by men.

And there are a hell of a lot of jobs in scientific & engineering fields. The whole of the construction industry for a start.

People still use inches, probably older folk. When I'm browsing Gumtree or FB marketplace I often see sizes given in inches. I can't be bothered to convert to a measurement that means anything to me, ie cm, so I normally just look at another listing. I will continue to do that if sellers want to use imperial measurements. I'll just find somewhere else to buy where I know how much I'll be getting without having to do any conversions.