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!

Its gesture politics not anything meaningful in terms of change.

@AnneElliott

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.

It's not hard. A kilo is 2lb 2oz. So half a kilo is a pound of tomatoes plus one (or four cherry tomatoes). A kilo is two pound of Victoria Plums plus a nice sized one.

People suggesting this will be accepted within a generation are mistaken. My town used to be part of a different county and people still refuse to use the new county on their address, still identify as born and bred in the old county, and there is a sharp intake of breath when the topic is raised.. the boundary changed in 1974

^ even at school I was taught to write the old county in my address in the late 90's.

@BoomChicka

People suggesting this will be accepted within a generation are mistaken. My town used to be part of a different county and people still refuse to use the new county on their address, still identify as born and bred in the old county, and there is a sharp intake of breath when the topic is raised.. the boundary changed in 1974

I know where you live!! (I'm just down the road.)

It’s a just a ridiculous gesture to signal how backwards our culture is rather than anything that makes sense for people’s lives, similar to changing the passport colour. I’ve got no idea how many inches are in a foot, I don’t know the boiling point of water in F and I don’t even know what the smaller measurement of a stone or a mile is. Nor do I care, because metric is a much better system.

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?

Metrification was completed in 1981 and people still don't accept it now. People pick up a 1kg bag of carrots and ask "what's that in old money?" "Old money" is totally bloody irrelevant: you can plainly see what a kilo of carrots looks like and you can buy it or you can leave it.

Britain has this weird compulsion to hark back to 'the good old days' which were more like the Dark Ages. Like equating every football match with Germany to a war which almost nobody alive can remember, it is incredibly baffling to the rest of the world.

I have to admit that while i am ok with pounds etc now, I hate oz. With passion. I have NO idea why but I disregard whole recipes when they use oz.

Because of courses the EU banned the sale of using scales with both measurements on.

I didn't think they banned dual scale, scales, just the kg had to be more prominent than the lbs.

Just the same as your car speedo, it likely has both but mph is more prominent than kph. To suit the British laws and roads.

I was in my 30s when the sale of goods in kilos was introduced. It was such a pain. But in reality people just got on with it. If we had to go back, which we won't, I'd adjust to that too. It's just not a big deal. Maybe because older people have been through it, they're just not as challenged by the change as much as some younger people are? I also don't see the problem if the crown is put back on pint glasses instead of the European CE if that's what publicans want. I doubt that most Brexiteers voted to leave because of that but I don't see how it really impacts negatively anyone's life if my sweet shop wants to sell me 4oz of toffee bonbons (which I now desperately want!) Rather than 125g.

Ha. Very few people under 55 know how to use imperial. I can use both. There's no point in worrying about it anyway, it's just another of Johnson's smokescreens to hide his latest fuckups.

@Annoyedanddissapointed

I have to admit that while i am ok with pounds etc now, I hate oz. With passion. I have NO idea why but I disregard whole recipes when they use oz.

Haha. They are fiddly things. But what recipes only use lbs?! That's a big thing you're cooking!

@Otherpeoplesteens yeah. The obsession with ww2 is baffling. It's been over 75 years... Let it go

@Otherpeoplesteens I can't believe they needed an enquiry to tell them using two separate measures could cause an issue.

And your right about the carrots, you know by looking at the bag is I enough or too many - I'm still gobsmacked people buy apples in any sort of weight - surely they are bought in numbers.

@dootball

The return the imperial measurements should make things lots easier.

For who? Not me, that's for sure. And unnecessary change - change for the sake of it - just brings additional cost to the end consumer. We are already bearing price rises to accommodate for the huge hike in admin/ import costs , and now they want to add to it? Ridiculous recidivist nonsense. .

@Porridgealert it's not all just pounds but some just seem to be ok😁. But yeah😂 i cook for a regiment (well... Just 2 of us). I think there is a difference between american oz and uk oz and i just hate oz😂
It's not rational i guess

@FangsForTheMemory

Ha. Very few people under 55 know how to use imperial. I can use both. There's no point in worrying about it anyway, it's just another of Johnson's smokescreens to hide his latest fuckups.

I think us older people are just very clever.😇😉

I don't think it's a cover up. They're just going through all the EU laws and keeping or amending them. If it didn't come up now, it would have to come up one day.

It's born of a different way of looking at the world. In Metric, a litre of any liquid is a litre. In imperial, whether it's a pint, quart, gallon, gill or whatever depends on what it is.

And knowing that a litre of water weighs a kilo is often very useful.

....and no it will not help trade with the USA because their pints, quarts and gallons are different.

@dootball

The return the imperial measurements should make things lots easier.

How it’s 50 years since most industries went metric. I doubt if you could find anything in your possession made to imperial sizes.

@Babdoc

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.

Me too.

And knowing that a litre of water weighs a kilo is often very useful.

Back in July we had a thread on here where someone's neighbour's 12 ft above ground pool sprang a leak late at night and was flooding the poster's garden.

The poster who suggested hopping over the fence and moving it clearly didn't have the knowledge to work out that if full it would have weighed about 9 tonnes.

@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?

Well, except for the ones buying quarters and teenths of anything...

@26Jaysmith71, what do you mean?

It's born of a different way of looking at the world. In Metric, a litre of any liquid is a litre. In imperial, whether it's a pint, quart, gallon, gill or whatever depends on what it is.

Those are all volume measurements. A pint of water is the same volume as a pint of oil. A pint of oil will weight less than a pint of water because oil is less dense. But the same is true for a litre of oil vs a litre of water.

The imperial measures still relate to each other. Four gills is one pint, a quart is a quarter of a gallon, hence two pints, as a gallon is eight pints.

Metric similarly has various sizes of units, just decimal. So you can buy 330ml of Coke or 33cl of Coke. It's the same volume.