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

@NancyDrooo
I’ll still buy a pint of beer, thanks. I’m 5’5”

No. I 'm 5foot5!

Seriously I am within spitting distance of 60 and I was taught metric at school and no way want to go back to imperial. I am older than Boris and Rees Mogg and my state school educated me for the modern world. Goodness knows what their fancy private schools were teaching them if they really think people want to go back to a system which requires a knowledge of number bases most of them are not equipped to handle.

Metric.
It’s the superior system especially in STEM.
Also adding or going back to imperial will worsen inflation and the cost of living crisis as it will cost billions for all the food traders to source containers in ounce/lb sizes, print new labels and relabel all this new packaging and buy new scales/-machines to dispense the food into the containers at factories in imperial measurements instead of metric. We import tonnes of food from the EU and if they have to have a special processing facility doing it all in imperial for the U.K. market, they’re going to have to mark their prices up. People are having enough trouble affording to eat as it is without Boris dumping petrol on the fire with this insanity.

Oh, FFS. Waste of time. Most of us get on perfectly well using a mixture and will continue to do so regardless of what we are officially meant to use. Some, such as the pint of beer, have never gone away. I suspect eventually metric will reign as it's more logical, but let it arrive at its own pace.

I do get people will measure stuff in ft I know my own height in ft but I measure my kids in cm, theme parks, carseats and clothes go in cm, why give myself a headache measuring in ft and trying to convert. I ignore ages it's just doesn't work for short kids.

Clinging to old systems is daft when police are giving suspects height they should give both 5ft and 152 cm. The same with babies the MW measures them in kg then coverts it.

BTW I can't be the only person put of asking a butcher for anything as everyone else seems to buy in pds but I know what I want is 500g because that's what it comes in from tesco

I’ve also complained about no option to do nothing and stay with metric system. I also complained about how switching to or adding imperial will cause even more price inflation especially for food and expressing disbelief that the Gov could even be considering this during a cost of living crisis when so many are already struggling to afford to buy food.

Exactly this. It’s not going to affect us on a grand scale, but the local grocer will be able to sell a pound of bananas.

It’s more than local loose fruit and veg for which the cost of compliance will be only new scales. It’s also every tin, jar, bag and box of food will have to be specially measured and labelled in imperial. And only for the U.K. Most of our food comes from the EU and they’re metric. If food producers and distributors have to set up a separate production line in imperial, this will cost billions and those costs will be passed on to we consumers by even higher food prices.

Allowing shops to choose will be annoying too: Is £5.39 for 400g of strawberries, 2 liters of milk, and a kg of flour at Tesco better or worse value than £5.89 for a pound of strawberries, 4 pints of milk and 2 pounds of flour at Asda?

Waste of time, money and effort.

All those who say they're happy with imperial, do you just mean feet, inches and stones or are you also comfortable with gallons, yards and hundredweights? I'm 40s and would much prefer to stick to metres, litres or any measurement that works in tens.

Ha ha ha! I am 49 and was completely taught in metric. It was my mums generation who were taught in imperial. She is in her 70s.

However like most of the population (even my son who is 24) I think in both metric and imperial. Eg Height is definitely feet and inches. Weight in cooking is in grams but weight if a person is in stones, kg means nothing to me. We also all still use acres and miles, rarely km.

I’m 27 and I have no concept of how much a pound, stone, ounce, foot etc are or how many go into the respective next measurement up. My only knowledge of pints is that’s what beer and milk come in (although not soya milk which comes in litres!) - if you asked me to pour a pint of water into a bowl I’d have no clue. Inches I only know because I know that they’re about 2.5 cm so I can convert them. So imperial really does not suit me (or my generation) at all.

🎯

We young adults must have have very limited knowledge of imperial because even their parents were taught in kgs and cm. I'd bet they'll be people working who have Grandparents who were taught metric too. GPs in their 60s, parents in 40s, adults in their 20s.

My experience of those who were taught that 16oz in a pound and 2 out of 4 questioned 14oz being a pound. What chance have we got if some advertises strawberries £4 for 14oz and the next shop is advertising £4 for lb.

Your probably right.

Do American kids still get taught imperial and some of their measures are different. Does a us pound = a uk pound?

Every shop that wants to sell by imperial measures will have to purchase scales that are calibrated to imperial. As since 2000, all scales had to be calibrated to metric, it would cost a fortune in replacement costs. All trading standards officers would have to have two sets of calibrated equipment. And as UK imperial isn't a standard any more, what they'd calibrate them against, goodness knows.

Born in '62 - was the first year to be taught metric alongside imperial so have been totally confused my whole life 😅

Live in Ireland these days and it's the same here for example we buy a litre of milk but go out for "pints" (of beer) 🤷‍♀️

This is completely fucking insane.

I own a food business and we have to have such labels. Natasha's Law has already added a great deal of expense to food labelling to businesses like ours (the ingredients label alone accounts for 2% of the price we sell the product for). It was the right thing to do, but still sodding expensive, and it has come hot on the heels of two years of lockdown hell, when we nearly went out of business thanks to government actions.

If they think I'm binning thousands of labels because they only have metric labels on, they can get to fuck. I'm not paying for the vanity project of this floppy haired buffoon. I may become a new version of a metric martyr.

I'm 55.

We were taught metric at school but we had to convert to imperial to but things like ingredients for cooking and cloth for sewing (both compulsory subjects) so we were taught how to do approximate conversions in your head, so 25g for an ounce but when you got to 8 ounces you had to add another 25g.

If they do this the real fun will be measuring things like kitchen cabinets who wants to work with a kitchen larder cupboard is 85in 7/16?

If they do this the real fun will be measuring things like kitchen cabinets who wants to work with a kitchen larder cupboard is 85in 7/16?

The construction industry will never revert to inches. It was one of the first industries to change. Metric is much easier to work with, even if there are some hangovers from an imperial age. Things like plasterboard sheets that are 2.40m which is roughly 8ft, rather than a more rounded 2.50m.

I was trying to work out earlier when the first kids to have been taught decimals would have been born my guess was 1960 so I wasn't far out. But right in thinking you would like pushing retirement age.
Do you know when they dropped imperial in schools completely?

Ooh A Brexit Benefit. Hurrah. Utterly pointless and stupid. What an embarrassing small-minded and short-sighted ship of fools is running this country.🍺half litre to you.

Where does this end up though? Will teachers be required to teach children imperial? They’ll still have to teach them metric if they want to face any type of career in STEM or the building trades so effectively the time devoted to measurements will be doubled, at the expense of something else. What a complete waste of time just to implement a propaganda project for JRM and Boris.

I use both, and I’d like to continue to use both.

I’m late 49s and was taught metric

Do American kids still get taught imperial and some of their measures are different. Does a us pound = a uk pound?

Pounds are the same but volume is not equivalent. So a US pint is not the same as a UK pint!