The government actually IS doing a consultation on bringing back imperial measurements!

[Kendodd]

I thought it was a joke.
AIBU to think this is a complete load of bollocks waste of money?

The questions don't even give you the option of saying just keep metric.
Example question -
For Consumers,

a) If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items:

(i) in imperial units?

(ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent?

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1079711/choice-on-units-of-measurement-markings-and-sales-consultation.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjchIqM1pT4AhXIPsAKHWSZBW0QFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw05usEgoqbR2NHfgE3SzAYH

I saw a link to that story on a FB group ("angry people in local newspapers") ... the comments were not supportive of the minority view here that imperial is any way A Good Thing.

Generally engineers refer to anything not SI as imperial.

The pro-‘imperial’ group aren’t advocating for the full canon of imperial measures either. Just the bits they feel sentimental about.

Generally engineers refer to anything not SI as imperial.

So an engineer specifying fuel tank dimensions and stating 100 gallons could mean 379 litres or 455 litres: take your pick? I don't think that's how they work. Imperial and US measures are not the same thing.

The pro-‘imperial’ group aren’t advocating for the full canon of imperial measures either. Just the bits they feel sentimental about.

Although they are also very keen to bring back the rod, I don't think they're referring to a length of 16½ feet.

Maybe if they shoved one up their arse we'd get a straight answer from them ?

I'd expect the statement of work to be written in SI units.

I have dyscalculia and learned the Imperial system. I found the switch to metric very difficult and to some extent, still struggle.
I'm sure I'd struggle if we reverted.

I much prefer the Imperial measurements because of the lunatic and haphazard way they evolved, like an inch being based on the thumb, a yard on a stride, an acre being how much someone with a horse can plough in a day, a hogshead? Good heavens, and something else to do with a hide being cut up in strips.
Love it!
Much more historical and poetic that being based some tiddly little fraction of the earth circumference.
Metric is sensible, grey and soulless.

I can't refute any of the preceding arguments, btw.

Oh, and I'm a staunch Remainer.

I much prefer the Imperial measurements because of the lunatic and haphazard way they evolved

A much better argument for, is the ease of making up fractions. Using 12 as a base means you get 2,3,4,6 as divisors and 12 goes easy into 60 and 360. (For reasons that needn't concern us, the metric calendar never really took off).

The same with old money. 20 shillings to a pound, 12 pennies to a shilling, half a sixpence, cor blimey gov, job's a good'un

Fuck that shit. What a waste of money.

We should go back to using Guineas to pay doctors and other professionals, and also buying home appliances like washing machines and fridges and the like.

I would reset all the currency, make a pound worth what £100 decimal is today so a shilling would be worth £5, and a penny would be worth about 40p. A farthing about 10p. There is no need for any smaller coins today. There would also be Florins and Half Crowns.

I'm 54. I have never used imperial, apart from miles. I was taught metric at school for the first year. Why on earth would they go backwards?

The international financial markets would just love that...

A much better argument for, is the ease of making up fractions. Using 12 as a base means you get 2,3,4,6 as divisors and 12 goes easy into 60 and 360.

Fine. But why 14 lb in a stone? Fourteen is only divisible by 2 and 7, both of which are prime numbers.

Why 112 lb in a cwt for 2,240 lb in a long ton? How do we deal with long (imperial) tons (2,240 lb) in the UK vs short (customary) tons (2,000 lb) in the USA? How are short tons subdivided?

No SI or metric unit is based on the earth's circumference.

The metric system is largely based on the properties of water.

But that's Wales. The whole country is commonly used as a non-metric unit of area.

Fine. But why 14 lb in a stone?

As previously noted, a stone - like 20 fl oz. pints is a peculiarly British unit. Much like metric time, it resisted the call of posterity,

Maybe the SNP could model their proposed currency on this model.

Ah yes, you're thinking about weights.

I was thinking about the way the metre was devised originally.

@Giggorata nope, weight is measured in Newton's.

1 gram = 1cm^3 of pure water.

Pretty much all mass, length, area, volume etc can be derived from their. Incredibly elegant.

The original definition of the metre was that it was one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator, as measured along the great circle that passes through the Paris observatory.

Nowadays all the seven base units of the SI system (the second, metre, kilogram, ampere, kelvin, mole and the candela) are defined in terms of certain constants of physics, which therefore have fixed values even if measurement precision improves. The physical constants involved are

the caesium hyperfine frequency ΔνCs
the speed of light in vacuum c
the Planck constant h
the elementary charge e
the Boltzmann constant k
the Avogadro constant NA, and
the luminous efficacy of a defined visible radiation Kcd

For example, take mass. The base unit is the kilogram (not the gram) and it is defined as follows

It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the Planck constant h to be 6.626 070 15 x 10–34 when expressed in the unit J s, which is equal to kg m2 s^–1, where the metre and the second are defined in terms of c and ΔνCs.

See www.bipm.org/en/measurement-units/si-base-units for the definition of the others.

The properties of water are not involved.

Oh gosh this is getting into semantic one-upmanship. For the vast majority of people, who aren't professional academics or in pretty niche engineering fields, the evolution of SI units of measurement is pretty irrelevant.

I hope they also use the bang up to date British unit of measurement, the double decker bus, by far my favourite unit of measurement for all things big.

ridiculous load of tosh