Metric System

[dinsdale]

I hate the Metric system with an absolute vengence  ( got that of my chest at last)

 

But do any of you think that to go competly to the (poxy french ***** system) would help the nation and if so why?

your answers are always welcome regardless of my opinion, and will be respected.

[piccadilly]

I'm absolutely sick to death of people using metres, if i look at a person, i think of him or her being Six feet tall not 1.83cms! i hate the way that tv presenters now use this horrible method to report the lenght of something or distance or it's height

[Fat Boy]

I know what you mean, all this counting in units of 10.  Modern-fangled Euro rubbish!  I mean, whats wrong with our fool-proof system of 12 inches to 1 foot, 3 feet to 1 yard and 1760 yards to 1 mile?  Or 16 ounces in 1 pound and 14 pounds in 1 stone.  Makes perfect sense to me.  Whereas having one consistent system using units of 10 is just completely illogical.  The Romans tried that hundreds of years ago & it clearly doesn't work.  I mean its not like we've got 10 fingers or anything like that is it..?

 

[Westminster]

Given that continental Europe represents the largest export market for what remins of our manufacturing industry, it's probably useful to make things to our customers' standards. Our customers don't owe us a living, and if they specify (say) a widget with mounting holes 100 mm between centres we may not get repeat orders if we supply them with holes 4 inches between centres.

[tartanwiz]

I'm with you, dinsdale. I can imagine something measured in yards, feet or inches, but metric measurements (especially millimetres) just lose me. I can picture somebody who is 5 foot 6 in height, I cannot picture anybody measured in centimetres. I think of liquid in pints, not weird litres or demilitres. As for weight - what the heck are milligrams? At least I know what an ounce weighs like. And I think of people in stones, not kilogrammes or whatever. Even the American system of weighing people in pounds gets me lost, let alone the meaningless system of grammes and kilos. Rant over.

[bernardo]

I prefer to use Imperial measures, but sometimes it's useful to do things in metric.  The best option would be for everybody to be fluent in and familiar with both systems.  By "everybody", obviously I mean the Continentals as well.

[amarillis]

I love the metric system! I obviously don't have as passionate views as some people, but it always has seemed so much easier, everything's in units of 10. I have not been in the UK very long, and am still totally confused by all the inches, and ounces, and pints. Give me litres and millimetres any day.

[stoo_pid]

Well, I'm British & would much rather we were a metric country.  Like amarillis & Fat Boy say, we already count in ten.  The issue here though is not one of measurements but one of change.  Most people don't like change, even if its for the better.

 

[pedant]

Both systems have their merits and shortcomings. It is obviously much simpler to work in an engineering environment with the metric system. Not simply because of the excellent point that Westminster makes regarding standards and ease of communication with our export markets, but because it is a decimal system it is easier to learn and easier to use. However the imperial system of mensuration, besides having a much grander name, is for the most part organic insofar as the units have been developed over a very long time and represent, for the most part, a 'thing' that is more relevant to human activity than the metric equivalents.

It is incorrect to see the adoption of the metric system in Britain as a European conspiracy. All the major markets in the world, with the exception of the US, use the metric system, and for the aforementioned reasons it simply makes more sense. What is wrong, however, has been the enforced use of the metric system in the domestic market and especially the weights and measures legislation that provides no advantage to anybody when it is so rigidly applied.

[New Forester]

I agree with Pedant.  Difficult to see, for example, Australia as being overcome with a passionate urge to join a European super-state...

 

The so-called Imperial system, of course, is not particularly British -- it's as European as Camembert and knickerbockers, and is still used informally in many other parts of Europe.  Could we just be jealous that it was not us who invented base-ten measurement...?  Or are we just a backward backwater?

 

Personally I'm happy with either.  Imperial measures are convenient for a lot of things, especially those I learnt to estimate as a child.  For example, I can tell the weight of a fish by sight to within a couple of ounces -- but I haven't a clue what it would be in g, even though I can do the conversion easily enough.  Likewise, the height of horses is easier for me in hands, and spacing plants in the veg plot in anything other than multiples of three inches would be utterly ridiculous!

 

On the other hand, doing sums in Imperial is a special torture which I'd rather avoid.  As a nine-year-old I'd just got to grips with �sd when the bas*ards decimalised them!  Good riddance.

 

I do wonder about this rabid anti-Europeanism.  I struggle to see the significance of a short stretch of salt water.  Our culture is surely much closer to the rest of Europe than (for example) to that of those transatlantic people (half of whom it appears can't see a git when they're looking at one)?

 

What does it all matter?  The UK is only a couple of hundred years old, and come to that England is only a few hundred -- why stick so fanatically to such recent history?  Many of our units (including the desperately beloved pound) are quite recent too.

[booksworth]

Ounces and pounds are excellent on a pair of scales, because they are a base2 system. You get that neat stack of weights, with no two the same. I never understood why it all takes a lurch sideways with pounds and stones; then back to base2 for quarters and hundredweights; then into a relative of base10 for tons. Having said that, balances are not so common these days, so whatever advantages there were are lost. Further, can you reliably remember how many fluid ounces make a pint?

[twiglet4frog]

metric is extremley accurate and easy to work out being in easy units 1's 10's 100's, but most people have spent all there lives in feet and inches and even me who was brought up in metric at school still use feet and inches easier, however metric will eventually rule the day but not until we have seen several generations come and pass, my feeling is that we will be havinf imperial vs metric for at least a few more decades yet

[Ewood27]

As so many of us seem to agree, it's a matter of what we're used to and being opposed to enforced change.  I'm an OAP and can happily visualise people's height in feet and weight in stones, but 1.75m tall means nothing.  When I go on a journey I want to know how many miles it is, and to reckon my speed in m.p.h. and my petrol in m.p.g.

 

On the other hand, as an ex-airline pilot I'm quite happy with visibilities in metric and temperatures in Celsius.  I still find myself converting money back to �sd at times!

 

It is said that there was once a Mr J Miles somewhere who was keen on metrication.  Someone changed the nameplate on his door to Mr J 3.2km.

[TariqE]

I'm from the UK- we use a bit of both systems......Imperial is pap....metric is good.

It's not just about measuring things in base 10 (which is far more logical and easier that imperial measurements) it's also about being able to quantify everything..... metric SI (international system) units are linked.....

so I know that 1 millilitre of water is 1 cubic centimetre (giving the link between volume and distance) and it weighs 1 gram (linking to mass) and it would take 1 joule of energy to heat up 1ml of water by 1 degree centigrade (linking it to energy and temperature).

So by using the metric system all kinds of physical properties are quantifiable in a simple manner.  It's just not possible to do this simply using the Imperial system.  Without wanting to sound too obnoxious- metric measurements are, quite simply, better than imperial.

[montyy]

i personally think that all you who complain about the metric system should get with the times! did you complain when demons and dragons took over the world? o wait...

[Bangkok]

the real beauty of the metrc system is that 1 litre of distilled water weighs 1 kilo. 

 

I was one of the first to be taught the metric system.  However, people are measured in feet and inches, but weighed in kilos.  I'd drive 10 miles but run 100 metres.  Milk is in litres, beer is in pints.

[maxi29]

The metric system is much easier to understand. Perhaps all the people who prefer the old system could opt to be paid in old money as well, then they'd be really happy.

[Tweed]

You're comfortable with what you're used to, though I think the imperial system is so outdated and it was well overdue for replacement. It has no logic to it. When you consider that SI units are metres, kilograms, litres etc and you've to convert imperial measurements into these units to perform useful calculations, it makes sense for everyone to use this system. Most metric units make use of the prefixs, kilo, mega, milli, micro etc. so you know on what scale you're talking. Having said that, I still have to use imperial from time to time because a lot of people will have no idea what I'm talking about otherwise.

[Numbers]

Bangkok - a pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter. Now that's real beauty!  ;-)

[David H]

I'll go along with you Dinsdale. Like driving on the right, metrication was devised by the French purely as a reaction against rules they hated as they were British. A foot relates to a part of our bodies, for instance. A metre is a fraction of the size of the Earth. In what way can we relate to that?

Also, in imperial (including old money) you never have large unwieldy amounts like 357 millimetres or 787 grams etc. As soon as an amout was too big (frequently over 12) it was divided again, like shillings, stone etc (though for some reason the Americans dropped that one). Given that perfect example, isn't it easier to estimate 11 stone 4 lbs than 158 lbs?

Even in imperial, if people run together amounts like that instead of keeping a split, you get figures approaching 1000 which (except with money) are harder to follow whether you use metric or not. And as for centilitres, which are half way between litres and millilitres, all I can say is 'why?'. Each imperial unit had a new name, not one based on the general which can so easily be confised with seven others. So, not only should metric stop at Calais, I'd be very happy to send task forces over there to convert them as well. Why should they have all the say?