TRIVIA: Practices that are peculiar to the UK

DerekC · 14 Oct 2019

The government in the 1960s started the move towards metrication but got cold feet because they could see votes getting lost because of it - and the shadow of the Daily Mail has hung over any politician who might dream of sorting the mess out ever since. I learned imperial up to age 11 or so, a mixture (because science was in SI metric units) up to age 18, did my college stuff entirely in metric (because that's what engineers do). My children learned mostly metric at home and entirely metric at school, but then discovered that many things are in this peculiar system of feet, inches, ounces and pounds. My grandchildren seem to be learning both - but why, oh why do people love this weird old system so much? If we had dumped it fifty years ago as we should have done, we would have saved a lot of effort and confusion and young people would be looking back on it as they do at pounds, shillings and pence - with disbelief!

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sprunt · 14 Oct 2019

PR1Berske said:
I remember a petition being set up which claimed going metric was a plot by the EU to get rid of all things British.

The most absurd thing along these lines that I ever saw was a letter in the newspaper stating that imperial units of measure are "more accurate" than metric ones.

Essan · 14 Oct 2019

I learned only metric at school.

I'm a hillwalker. I have no idea how far a km is. But I use mm for small distances. Then inches, feet and miles.

I weight myself in stones and pounds, but my camping gear in Kilos

After a walk, beers comes in a pint, wine and spirits in cl multiples .....

At work I sell foam either in metric or imperial. Most of my customers give me their required length and breadth in mm or cm, and depth in inches .....

I would say this bewildering to others, but strangely rational to ourselves, perfectly functional mixture of measurements is uniquely British

SHD · 14 Oct 2019

sprunt said:
The most absurd thing along these lines that I ever saw was a letter in the newspaper stating that imperial units of measure are "more accurate" than metric ones.

Nothing comes close to Peter Hitchens claiming that imperial measurements are a true representation of (British) identity because they are linked to the lived experiences of peasants of yore.

The measurements had another fascinating characteristic. They were based on the individual. A pound was what could be held in the hand. A pint was what a grown man might reasonably drink to quench his thirst. An inch was the top joint of a thumb, a foot was, well, a foot and a yard was a pace. A fathom of water was deep enough to close over a man’s head. They worked outwards from the human.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...-HITCHENS-signs-hastened-erosion-England.html

Struner · 14 Oct 2019

sprunt said:
The most absurd thing along these lines that I ever saw was a letter in the newspaper stating that imperial units of measure are "more accurate" than metric ones.

But they must be! A foot is defined as 0.3048 meters exactly. :lol:

(whatever a metre is of course

)

TRAX · 14 Oct 2019

najaB · 14 Oct 2019

TRAX said:
View attachment 69388

Well, if we're going down that route it's time to post my favourite graphic from Wikipedia:

(Image shows the confusing relationships between units of Imperial measurements)

Struner · 14 Oct 2019

& you had to learn all that primary school?

Howardh · 14 Oct 2019

Just out of interest, do you prefer the weather in degrees c or f? I prefer c as it's neat and tidy, but I can handle f. However f loses it's meaning once it gets below freezing, what's 15f for goodness sakes? -9c makes more of an impression on reality!!

Edit, in sport there are a lot of games in imperial which cause bizarre entries into rule-books, hockey is 100yds divided into 25yrd quarters. In all the books it's in metric (22.86) which then becomes rounded up to 23, so a line drawn at 23m is wrong!!

*Doesn't matter - just that the numbers look untidy in the rule book, but one rule, the 5 yard rule, now 5m means players have to stand further away or carry the ball further. But technically hockey has a mix of units, ie. the 5m rule but the pitch measurements could be in imperial and unchanged; like the goal dimensions.
Or something.

Bantamzen · 14 Oct 2019

najaB said:
Well, if we're going down that route it's time to post my favourite graphic from Wikipedia:

(Image shows the confusing relationships between units of Imperial measurements)

My brain just melted. Who sat down one day and thought, you know I think there will 1760 yards to a mile, or 5 shaftment to a pace? Its metric all the way for me, stuff imperial measures, they look like something thrown together late at night in the pub (and they probably were too!)....

TRAX · 14 Oct 2019

najaB said:
(Image shows the confusing relationships between units of Imperial measurements)

As opposed to the neatly arranged metric units on the right.

DaleCooper · 14 Oct 2019

I saw this on a shipping container this afternoon:

Height 9' 6"
Width 2.5m

pdq · 14 Oct 2019

It surprises me that when buying certain grocery products, they are still clearly in imperial amounts, even if the units are metric. For instance, a jar of marmalade will probably be 454g. After all this time, why not 450 or 500g? I can understand that the jars were manufactured to hold a pound and would cost to change, but sticking to 454g seems perverse.
And a pre-packed tray of posh sausages - definitely a relatively recent product - will also be 454g. Why a pound? Why not half a kilo?

Meerkat · 14 Oct 2019

The attraction of imperial is some of the convenient units. There is too big a jump from centimetres (which is also too long a word) and metres for example.
‘About 8 inches’ is quicker to say and visualise than ‘about 20 centimetres, ‘about 8 feet’ is better than errrr...hang on...’about 2.4 metres’.
A pint is a perfect drink measurement (if we had never had pints we could have ‘halves’ [litres] but it would be too confusing now)
I am slowly getting the hang of centigrade, but previously always used centigrade for cold (zero equals literally freezing works well) and Fahrenheit for hot (80, 90, 100 degrees was somehow easier to visualise comparative temps)

DaleCooper · 14 Oct 2019

Meerkat said:
'about 8 feet’ is better than errrr...hang on...’about 2.4 metres’.

About 2 metres is better than about 6ft 6.75inches, about 1kg is better than about 2.205lbs, about 1km is better than about 0.6214 miles.

najaB · 14 Oct 2019

pdq said:
Why a pound? Why not half a kilo?

There's no advantage in selling exact fractional amounts.

DerekC · 14 Oct 2019

Essan said:
I learned only metric at school.

I'm a hillwalker. I have no idea how far a km is. But I use mm for small distances. Then inches, feet and miles.

I weight myself in stones and pounds, but my camping gear in Kilos

After a walk, beers comes in a pint, wine and spirits in cl multiples .....

At work I sell foam either in metric or imperial. Most of my customers give me their required length and breadth in mm or cm, and depth in inches .....

I would say this bewildering to others, but strangely rational to ourselves, perfectly functional mixture of measurements is uniquely British

I think that's just a way of saying that it's what you are used to. Rational it isn't. Perfectly functional? Hmmm.. Uniquely British? If true I am not sure it's something to be proud of. What do they do in Oz and NZ?

Struner · 14 Oct 2019

DaleCooper said:
I saw this on a shipping container this afternoon:
Height 9' 6"
Width 2.5m

Would that one be allowed somewhere else in the EU?

TRAX · 14 Oct 2019

In NZ we use a mix of both (but speeds in km/h).

Struner · 14 Oct 2019

Meerkat said:
[…]
I am slowly getting the hang of centigrade, but previously always used centigrade for cold (zero equals literally freezing works well) and Fahrenheit for hot (80, 90, 100 degrees was somehow easier to visualise comparative temps)

I consider 100°F to be lukewarm, definitely not hot. It won’t get you anywhere in the kitchen.

pdq · 14 Oct 2019

najaB said:
There's no advantage in selling exact fractional amounts.

Indeed. But when the sausages I mentioned were being developed, who thought - 'We must make them to be exactly 454g per pack'? They could just as easily have been 448, 459 or whatever; but they chose to manufacture a new product to be an old pound in weight.

pdq · 14 Oct 2019

Struner said:
I consider 100°F to be lukewarm, definitely not hot. It won’t get you anywhere in the kitchen.

I really haven't got a clue about Fahrenheit, except that 70 is roughly 20. In Celcius I know that <10 is getting a bit chilly, 15-20 is pleasant, 20-25 warm and from then on it's hot or swealtering. But ask me what I should wear if it's 55F and couldn't say. I wonder at what point it will be decided that weather forecasters no longer need to quote the F equivalent.

DaleCooper · 14 Oct 2019

I've been out of manufacturing industry for some time now but as recently as the early 2000s the use of British Standard Pipe (BSP) threads in inch sizes was pretty well universal, certainly in Europe and Japan, so a completely metric drawing would include something like "R1/4" x 16" indicating that the thread was 1/4"BSP x 16mm deep. Is this still the case?

sprunt · 14 Oct 2019

SHD said:
Nothing comes close to Peter Hitchens claiming that imperial measurements are a true representation of (British) identity because they are linked to the lived experiences of peasants of yore.

The measurements had another fascinating characteristic. They were based on the individual. A pound was what could be held in the hand. A pint was what a grown man might reasonably drink to quench his thirst. An inch was the top joint of a thumb, a foot was, well, a foot and a yard was a pace. A fathom of water was deep enough to close over a man’s head. They worked outwards from the human.

Ha ha ha! The foot thing's bad enough (I wonder if he gets in many arguments in shoe shops, just ranting "Size? A foot, obviously!") but the pound thing is wonderfully stupid.

Peter Mugridge · 14 Oct 2019

pdq said:
It surprises me that when buying certain grocery products, they are still clearly in imperial amounts, even if the units are metric. For instance, a jar of marmalade will probably be 454g. After all this time, why not 450 or 500g? I can understand that the jars were manufactured to hold a pound and would cost to change, but sticking to 454g seems perverse.
And a pre-packed tray of posh sausages - definitely a relatively recent product - will also be 454g. Why a pound? Why not half a kilo?

There's some pointless legal restriction forcing the items to be in the metric equivalent of the old measures, that's why. Apparently it was the only way they could get the metrication passed by Parliament at the time...

DaleCooper · 14 Oct 2019

Peter Mugridge said:
There's some pointless legal restriction forcing the items to be in the metric equivalent of the old measures, that's why. Apparently it was the only way they could get the metrication passed by Parliament at the time...

That doesn't explain my 300g tin of peas, 1kg bag of sugar, 1.5kg of oven chips etc.

Peter Mugridge · 14 Oct 2019

DaleCooper said:
That doesn't explain my 300g tin of peas, 1kg bag of sugar, 1.5kg of oven chips etc.

McCain's do sell a 454g pack in their range, though...

The situation is that businesses may supply goods in the traditional quantities, but must display the metric measure more prominently than any imperial measure, so all that's happening is that most haven't altered their production facilities - they are still set up for the old pound in weight - but other quantities have also been introduced. There is a .pdf about that here:

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP95-78/RP95-78.pdf

Under new regulations, from 1 October 1995, all prepackaged goods, whether sold in variable weights or not, will have to be labelled in metric units. However, this does not necessarily mean that pre-packed food has to be sold in uniform units of, say, 100 grams. Unless legislation specifies otherwise3 it will be possible, for instance, to sell pre-packed food in units of 454 g (ie. 1 lb) instead of in pounds. A shop would be able to sell a 1 lb pack of cheese, but it would have to be labelled as 454g. However, the dual use of imperial measures is not banned, so the cheese could also be labelled as 1 lb: the metric measure would just have to come first or be more prominent.

Ianno87 · 15 Oct 2019

Who even goes into the supermarket and thinks "I'll buy a pound of chips?". Nobody!

pdq · 15 Oct 2019

Peter Mugridge said:
McCain's do sell a 454g pack in their range, though...

The situation is that businesses may supply goods in the traditional quantities, but must display the metric measure more prominently than any imperial measure, so all that's happening is that most haven't altered their production facilities - they are still set up for the old pound in weight - but other quantities have also been introduced. There is a .pdf about that here:

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP95-78/RP95-78.pdf

I can accept that for what might be termed 'legacy' products that have been around for years, but it doesn't quite make sense. One of the most common grocery products at in years gone by would have a 'pound of butter' yet that's sold now in 250g blocks.

najaB · 15 Oct 2019

pdq said:
One of the most common grocery products at in years gone by would have a 'pound of butter' yet that's sold now in 250g blocks.

Did anyone ever buy a pound of butter? I always heard people calling it a "stick" or a "block".

TRIVIA: Practices that are peculiar to the UK

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