The lady who served me asked my height, I said 5’ 4".
She looked at me all weird until I gave the measurement in centimeters. 
1 Like
I get that all the time Bretrick.
My weight is 70 kg apparently… 
Whatever that is…
1 Like
I’m still in feet and inches.
eg :If someone says 25mm.I have to think back to my working days when it all changed …aha an inch!
3 Likes
Oh, metric system is so much easier. I have never really understood imperial measurements even though I spent the first twentysix years of my life in UK. 
2 Likes
When I first came to Australia they were going metric. It was done brilliantly, they banned references to imperial measurement from the word go, even banned the import of rulers with inches on them (since rescinded).
At the time I resented it very much but looking back it was such a good way of doing it.
Even though I occasionally lapse into the vernacular (“Move it a couple of inches toward me”) it was such a sensible way of doing things. Even though I know I am still 6ft tall I actually say 183cm or 1830mm and Fahrenheit means nothing to me, in fact if it weren’t for the spell checker I could not even write it.
You only need to look at the UK to know how easily the change to metrication and decimalisation can be completely cocked up on a massive scale.
2 Likes
A bit similar to mine. But I have had to deal with metric (or SI) for most of my adult life with the engineering field…
2 Likes
Me too Besoeker. Drawings sometimes came in metric or sometimes in imperial.
Some machines were calibrated in metric and some calibrated in imperial.
Converting from one to the other is second nature to me now and can work in both.
I usually measure weight in pounds and ounces and liquid mostly comes in pints and gallons, but Bruce is right, we should have just bitten the bullet and changed all at once.
We now end up with a young peoples measurements and old peoples measurements, especially if you didn’t work in engineering or joinery.
1 Like
Power stations I worked in that were built in the 1950s and early 60 still had instruments calibrated in gallons and PSI but in a way it is just numbers however I can remember that 7kpa is about 1psi and that about 2.3ft of water is 1 psi (god, I hope that is right)
However BHP bought secondhand turbo alternators of a similar vintage but converted all the gauges to metric. It just takes the will (and a bit of money)
One anomaly, my car tyres are 200kpa front, 280kpa rear but the gauge at the servo defaults to psi (so 29psi and 41psi) but it is only a matter of pressing a button to get kpa on the gauge.
2 Likes
On my Citroen the tyre pressures are in ‘bar’ I used to convert it to psi but seeing as my pump displays both I decided to use the bar, for some reason bar are easier to read than psi and as you get older eyesight is not as good as it used to be…
1 Like
Hi Mr Fox. Yes, we do use both, particularly older machinery like paper machines and steel mills. On the domestic side we have an operator who uses American units…)
2 Likes
Metric measurement should be banned. For example what is on the en of persons legs? feet of course!!! not some stupid measurements one neverf learnt. On the end of arms we have hands same as measuring a horse.
2 Likes
Interesting realspeed…
1 Like
It is simply down to common usage and how your brain relates to certain measures. After decades of using feet for length it is to be expected that you can visualise 5 feet or 6 feet or 25 feet. To change that it is simply a matter of getting used to another measure and visualising that measure. So one and half metres or two metres.
After over ten years in France I know I am 185 cm, I know what a square metre roughly looks like, I order my firewood in cubic metres. I have pretty much forgotten what 50 miles an hour feels like and instead I’m aware if I’m driving faster than 80 kph on a country road.
Imperial is complex, illogical, difficult to calculate with and should already be in the history books as a funny aside. Just like being told that a pound used to be made up of 240 pennies, ha ha, really, why, what benefit is there from that number? And don’t get me started on Fahrenheit.
3 Likes
Something else we agree on Lincs…It’s becoming a bit of a habit…
What can be more simple than:-
0º C Water freezes and 100º C water boils?
As opposed to 32º F Water freezes and 212º F water boils…
3 Likes
And of course you need furlongs, chains, fathoms, leagues, cables, links, rods, bushels, pecks etc. I’ll stick with the much simpler SI.
2 Likes
Bar, Kpa? essentially the same thing. 1 bar =100kpa
2 Likes
I mentioned how in Australia when they went metric they banned all references to imperial measure.
There was one exception. When the police issued a description of a suspect they were allowed to give the measurement in both metric and imperial for a few years.
When I was in the UK my brother gave his weight in stones and pounds, meant absolutely nothing to me even though I remember that the numbers 16 and 14 come into it.
I can visualise someone weighing 80kg but 8 stone could be skinny or obese, I have no idea now (though I tend to think more likely the former than the latter).
The US system of measuring weight in pounds has never meant anything.
Of all the countries in the world you’d think the US would have been one of the first to ditch imperial measures…
1 Like
I suppose if you were measuring the height and weight of people all day long like medical professionals, you would quickly learn the more favoured metric system and be able to convert quickly after measuring old people who are stuck in their ways…
1 Like
I used 12 inches as a rule
1 Like