Been there, done that…
What I found confusing when I was in the UK last was that the speedo was cluttered with both speeds in kph and mph.
Oh, and a motorway exit sign which said 0.5m, I thought you needed more than half a metre notice at 110kph
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No, us Brits should go the extra Mile to ban them.
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I can understand a mile, but I can’t understand a kilometer, I can understand feet & inches but I can’t understand mms & cms, I can now understand our metric currency, but it took a while.
I still buy two pints of milk whatever the bottle says.
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You don’t need to worry because since the Weights and Measures Act 1985, British law defines base imperial units in terms of their metric equivalent.
For example:
Subject to subsection (6) below,]the yard or the metre shall be the unit of measurement of length and the pound or the kilogram shall be the unit of measurement of mass by reference to which any measurement involving a measurement of length or mass shall be made in the United Kingdom; and—
(a)the yard shall be 0.9144 metre exactly;
(b)the pound shall be 0·453 592 37 kilogram exactly.
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The British Parliament first started considering switching to metric measurements over 100 years ago, yet here we are, still dithering between two measuring systems!
We should have bitten the bullet and made the switch years ago - areas and lengths are so much easier to mentally calculate when you are using multiples of tens and hundreds.
The reason everyone understands decimal currency now is because the switch was made and folk just had to get used to using it. I expect most of us “think” in decimal currency now - I don’t suppose many people still mentally convert a decimal price into £SD to decide how much a product costs.
Regular usage would soon make us familiar with metric measurements too.
Necessity is the mother of invention. If we had just made the switch instead of continuing to use both systems of weights and measures, side by side, for so long, by now everyone would be as familiar with metric measurements as they are familiar with decimal currency.
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You are absolutely right. I have to say that when Australia converted to metric I really resented it but there was no choice because even the import of rulers with imperial measurements was banned.
The evening news only gave weather forecasts in Celsius (no Fahrenheit in brackets), every thing in the shops was metric,. even though wall sheeting was still 8ft by 4ft it was listed as 2440mm by 1220mm.
I am so glad that I was forced to make the change because imperial measurements seem so silly now.
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Knowing roughly what it is is enough for me.
A metre is a yard, a step, a stride.
A cm is about half an inch … near as dammit.
A mm is a slice of roast beef.
A mile is a 15-20 minute walk, a kilometre is a 10-15 minute walk.
etc.
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I don’t remember TV weather forecasts in anything other than Centigrade/Celsius.
Fahrenheit means absolutely nothing to me.
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I have never used Fahrenheit either - at school and in science studies, we used Celsius / °C
When cooking, I have a good idea of temperatures given in Gas Mark numbers and °C and can switch between them but if I’m following an American recipe which only gives a Fahrenheit temperature, I have to convert it to °C first.
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I’m an engineer. We have to use metric or more correctly SI units. I have been using metric for fifty years but I can still use Imperial - my wife is American so she uses US measures but getting used to metric after 22 years!
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The UK officially adopted the Metric System in 1965 but the government decided not to force the issue
Instead they thought that as Metric was now being taught in schools they would just encourage people to change, and not make it compulsory
Their idea was that the change would happen naturally in a few years or inside a generation
But as we know, it didn’t work out like that, and Imperial measurements have lingered on to this day, and we have the silly, confusing mixture of both systems
Countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand all changed to Metric in the early 1970s, between about 1971 & 1975, but they did the job properly, perhaps because they’d seen what a mess the UK had made of things
Thus their changeover was made compulsory and done in a very quick time, and they are all familiar with the Metric system and know where they stand
I was taught both Metric & Imperial, but I prefer Metric and use it whenever I can - kilograms, litres, cm, mm, metres, and so on
The only one I’m not too sure of and don’t use regularly is kilometres, but I’m sure that as Bruce says, if we did change to km on our roads, we would all get used to it easily enough
The government really should get their finger out and make a proper job of the change to Metric.
Oh, and I stopped using Fahrenheit years ago.
Just to confuse things, the Americans insist on calling their measuring system Imperial but it’s not - it is in fact the 18th century British system, which is similar to, but not exactly the same as modern Imperial, and is officially called American Customary Units
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I really don’t mind which I use.
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A pint of Beer is good enough for me.
If they want me to start drinking Litres, it’ll be their fault if I fall over.
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I was an electrician,you got used to working in imperial and metric.
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No No No No No No.
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Yep…I was a machinist and some of the machines were graduated in imperial and some were graduated in metric…The drawings would come in either metric or imperial, so you learnt to convert one to the other very quickly and could toggle between the two. That has stayed with me and I can work or calculate in either, although as a runner and cyclist I prefer miles. I have always worked in centigrade when dealing with temperature.
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And a postie? Was that at the same time or after or before?
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In a nutshell…
Apprentice trained machinist and mechanical engineer for 35 years Mr Smith…1965 - 2000
Made redundant, bought a van, and became a self employed courier…2000 - 2007
Worked as a postman before retiring at 60…2007 - 2010
Thanks for asking…
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There are oddities here.
In the 1980s I worked in several state government run power stations that were built in the 1950/60s where everything was still calibrated and measured in imperial units - PSI, tons, gallons etc.
I then worked at BHP who used a lot of second hand equipment bought from the Electricity Commission as well as stuff bought from Europe and the USA. Everything was converted to metric so it was all kpa, litres, tonnes etc.
It always struck me as odd that a state organisation would still use old fashioned measurements but private enterprise was all metric both in the same industry.
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