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TRIVIA: Practices that are peculiar to the UK

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pdq

pdq

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To be fair, I was assuming. It feels like the kind of thing our grandparents (or older) might have asked for in the corner shop - a pound of butter, a dozen eggs and a quarter of ham please.
Just searched for 454g on Tesco Groceries. Most results are for preserves and sausages; there are burgers (fair enough as they are marketed as quarter pounders) and mince as well. But also in the list are McCains 'Smilers'. What?
 
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Meerkat

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DaleCooper said:
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.
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Ah, no, your versions are slower...:D
About six six
about two paaan’ (maybe ‘one key’ wins if you talk like a drug dealer!)
About arf a mile
 
nlogax

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najaB said:
Did anyone ever buy a pound of butter? I always heard people calling it a "stick" or a "block".
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'Sticks' are more of a US measure, each stick being 4 oz and sold packaged either in half or full pound boxes. Never heard anyone use 'pound of butter' in the UK but maybe I'm not quite old enough.
 
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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.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...-HITCHENS-signs-hastened-erosion-England.html
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sprunt said:
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.
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A relative of mine, who died at a great age some ten years ago, held very similar views to those -- IMO fatuous -- on this subject, set out by Hichens as in the above-linked-to piece. My relative waxed vociferous on the theme of our old measurements being "organic", as per the above quote; as opposed to the metric stuff, dreamed up by foreign pseudo-scientists and based on the cold and abstract attempted (and, apparently, now proved inaccurate) calculation of the circumference of the earth. He was also a champion of "doing things in twelves" (pence to shillings, inches to feet, etc.), because twelve is divisible by more numbers than ten. The irony was that although my relative could talk the hind leg off a donkey on any subject; he was, effectively, innumerate in no matter what system involving figures -- a family trait which I unfortunately seem to share.
 
SHD

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Calthrop said:
A relative of mine, who died at a great age some ten years ago, held very similar views to those -- IMO fatuous -- on this subject, set out by Hichens as in the above-linked-to piece. My relative waxed vociferous on the theme of our old measurements being "organic", as per the above quote; as opposed to the metric stuff, dreamed up by foreign pseudo-scientists and based on the cold and abstract attempted (and, apparently, now proved inaccurate) calculation of the circumference of the earth. He was also a champion of "doing things in twelves" (pence to shillings, inches to feet, etc.), because twelve is divisible by more numbers than ten. The irony was that although my relative could talk the hind leg off a donkey on any subject; he was, effectively, innumerate in no matter what system involving figures -- a family trait which I unfortunately seem to share.
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Parting quantities in twelves has a distant connection to bodily features - we have 12 useable phalanges at each hand when moving the thumb to perform calculations.

DaleCooper said:
There's one UK unit of measurement which is base 13. Anyone know what it is?
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If your fishmongers act like ours, oysters are sold by the dozen but actually served to the customer by the thirteenzen.
 
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SHD said:
Parting quantities in twelves has a distant connection to bodily features - we have 12 useable phalanges at each hand when moving the thumb to perform calculations.
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I fear I am being dim...explain please?
 
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Ahh....I see! Thanks
I would have to learn to be consistent in directions though!
 
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route101

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SteveP29 said:
Never seen one in Scotland yet and I've been all over the place in the 8 years I've been up here.
It's always a switch outside the room


Fixed that for ya ;)
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Im in Scotland and have a pull cord in my bathroom.
 
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route101

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External doors to shops that you pull out if you are entering a shop . Think this may be a eastern european thing , usually PVC too
 
Tetchytyke

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pdq said:
But also in the list are McCains 'Smilers'. What?
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Shrinkflation? It seems to be the reason behind most bizarre weights I see in the shops now.

pdq said:
It feels like the kind of thing our grandparents (or older) might have asked for in the corner shop - a pound of butter, a dozen eggs and a quarter of ham please.
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I do a fair bit of my grocery shopping in the wonderful Grainger Market and still order like that :lol:

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
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Even more bizarrely, draught beer and cider must be sold in imperial measurements- pints, halves and thirds, ir multiples thereof- and not metric. So you can't buy a 500ml draught beer, even if you wanted to.

transmanche said:
the costs incurred by vehicle manufacturers in having to fit mph speedometers solely for UK cars.
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Until recently we had an Irish-import Fiesta, brought back when my wife finished working there. Although it post-dated metrification, the speedo was in MPH. Go figure.
 
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najaB

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transmanche said:
not to mention things like the costs incurred by vehicle manufacturers in having to fit mph speedometers solely for UK cars.
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If you're going down that route, Ireland is even more of an expense - left hand drive and km/h.
 
Lucan

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transmanche said:
the costs incurred by vehicle manufacturers in having to fit mph speedometers solely for UK cars
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Trivial compared with the cost of a car. Manufacturers cope with a plethora of other variations, mostly more substantial than that, for marketing purposes.
route101 said:
External doors to shops that you pull out if you are entering a shop.
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That expedites escape from a fire. When I replaced my kitchen door to the garden I made it open outwards. Paid dividends when one day Lady Lucan carried a flaming chip pan out into the garden (despite all the advice you see not to do so).
 
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Ianno87 said:
In any case, it won't be long before everybody of working age in the UK is fully conversant with metric (having been taught it in school), so perhaps soon the time will be ripe...
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I was taught in metric, I still have at least 20 years to go before I can contemplate retirement...........

Meerkat said:
I was taught metric at school (though lots of the textbooks were still imperial!) but still don’t think in metric - I can’t visualise the metric equivalents of feet length or kg weight.
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Same, I can't visualise what 2 metres tall is.
I can visualise a certain number of stones, but not Kilos, I'd have to Google it.
I can only cope on the European golf course by the mantra 1.1 (measurements on the continent in metres, to convert to yards, multiply those metres by 1.1, so 200 metres becomes 220 yards, a 3 iron for me, since you ask!!)
Watch motor racing and they say they reach 300kph, convert that by multiplying by .6, 180mph. I could relate to how fast 180mph is, but not 300kph, not till I convert it to mph
 
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transmanche said:
Everyone else uses km. Our political masters keep telling us that we are about to become 'Global Britain'. So why not join the rest of the world in using the same measurement system?
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In case you missed the last 3 and half years, we're about to cut ourselves off from all that gubbins and forget about them all

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.
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The Metric Martyr, a greengrocer from Sunderland.
Didn't do him any good really, he died of a heart attack IIRC a few years after the case gained some national coverage
 
GusB

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SteveP29 said:
I was taught in metric, I still have at least 20 years to go before I can contemplate retirement...........



Same, I can't visualise what 2 metres tall is.
I can visualise a certain number of stones, but not Kilos, I'd have to Google it.
I can only cope on the European golf course by the mantra 1.1 (measurements on the continent in metres, to convert to yards, multiply those metres by 1.1, so 200 metres becomes 220 yards, a 3 iron for me, since you ask!!)
Watch motor racing and they say they reach 300kph, convert that by multiplying by .6, 180mph. I could relate to how fast 180mph is, but not 300kph, not till I convert it to mph
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Same here - stones and pounds for weight, feet and inches for height. I was also taught metric at school, but had parents and grandparents who used imperial. I am fairy comfortable using both systems and have no problem converting (nor should anyone these days when most people have a smartphone in their pocket and access to Google).

On the rare occasion that I bake a cake, it's imperial for me - for a basic sponge 4,4,4,2 is easier to remember than the metric equivalents.
 
61653 HTAFC

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najaB said:
If you're going down that route, Ireland is even more of an expense - left hand drive and km/h.
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Not unique though: although they're small, Malta and Cyprus use km/h and drive on the left. Admittedly they're more likely to want air-conditioning in their cars though! The UK is more awkward as we insist on using the Vauxhall brand for Opel/GM vehicles.

Also I think you meant to say right hand drive: referring to where the steering wheel is on the car rather than where the car goes on the road. Hence European LGVs in the UK should have "LH" marked on the back, not "RH".
 
najaB

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61653 HTAFC said:
Also I think you meant to say right hand drive: referring to where the steering wheel is on the car rather than where the car goes on the road. Hence European LGVs have "LH" marked on the back, not "RH".
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Indeed. I meant to say "drive on the left but speed in km/h" - thanks for the correction. :)
 
SHD

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GusB said:
Same here - stones and pounds for weight, feet and inches for height. I was also taught metric at school, but had parents and grandparents who used imperial. I am fairy comfortable using both systems and have no problem converting (nor should anyone these days when most people have a smartphone in their pocket and access to Google).

On the rare occasion that I bake a cake, it's imperial for me - for a basic sponge 4,4,4,2 is easier to remember than the metric equivalents.
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The French - and thus quintessentially metric - quatre-quarts (four fourths) is even easier (although less spongy):

Eggs
Same weight of butter
Same weight of flour
Same weight of sugar (except for a tablespoon of vanilla sugar)
Some baking soda

Why four fourths, you may wonder?

Because typically you will use 4 eggs to make a mouth-watering cake for the family.

A medium-sized egg is approx. 60 to 65 grams -> 4 eggs will weight approx. 250 g
and 250 g is one-fourth of a kilogram
It is also, conveniently, the typical vending size of butter in supermarkets

Hence, four-fourths!
 
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