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Inertia, nostalgia, politics. I remember when the UK went metric in the early 1970s - not only weights and measures, but the currency too. It saved me an awful

Inertia, nostalgia, politics. I remember when the UK went metric in the early 1970s - not only weights and measures, but the currency too. It saved me an awful lot of heartache at school as I was taught entirely in metric and only had to learn imperial for pub quizzes later in life. Even so, the conversion was not 100% - had the Powers legislated at the time that road distances had to be in kilometres and beer measured in litres we wouldn't be having to put up with this nonsense consultation today; nobody's mentioned going back to £sd (yet).

hilbert42 4y ago
"It saved me an awful lot of heartache at school..." Yes, you were lucky. Here in Australia (and I gather similarly in the UK) before metrication we had all sorts of odd units - rods, perches, acres, stones etc. - that had no sensible conversion factors between them. It was so confusing that essentially all school exercise books had their back covers jam-packed with Imperial tables and conversions. To make matters worse, when learning science in high school we had to use the Imperial system as well as both metric systems the CGS and MKS (nowadays essentially the SI system) and we had to be able to convert between their different units with ease (an exam paper could easily have poundals in one question and ergs in another - or even within the same question if conversions were required). If one wasn't careful large errors would result. For example, if one converted poundals into ergs and or joules or vice versa one could be way off by orders of magnitude as difference between ergs and joules is so very large. Add to that the fact that we had to convert pints to say centilitres , decilitres and litres - the now infrequently used 'deci' was alive and well back then. It was a bloody awful mess (no wonder we kids hated all that mucking around). When Australia finally went metric in the early 1970s it actually did one thing right for once (normally over here we're past masters at screwing things up). That was to temporarily ban some Imperial units from being used. For instance, 12" rules became unavailable, only 30cm metric ones could be purchased and schools only taught the metric system. This regulation was relaxed later but it annoyed many at the time. Nevertheless, it was a very cleaver move as it forced everyone to adapt quickly and they did (that most adapted so well was quite remarkable). Had both system run in parallel then most would have taken the lazy way out and stuck with what they already knew (that seems to have been what happened in the UK - at least initially). Thus, today, few here would know, say, what stone weight are, and those of us who do were taught in the pre-metrication era. Even then, it's been so long since we've used these units in any practical sense that we're now almost in the same boat as those who've never heard of them. As I pointed out in a related HN post some weeks ago, the UK's insistence on still using Imperial units becomes very visible to the world when they loom large in BBC and other documentaries, etc. The example I used was the great confusion that the BBC's health guru Dr Michael Mosley causes over here when, say, he makes programs on obesity/overweight etc. and all of his measurement references are in pounds and stones. As many here haven't a clue what he's talking about then clearly his health message is substantially lost. Very stupid logic! To make matters worse, it's not as if Mosley isn't aware of the problem because he's been here on multiple occasions and even made programs about diabetes and obesity here (and of course they have to be in metric units). Naturally - as is its wont - the BBC doesn't even bother to subtitle their docos with metric units either, which for many here is simply arrogance - hence my sarcasm about God's Own Units!

hilbert42 4y ago

"It saved me an awful lot of heartache at school..." Yes, you were lucky. Here in Australia (and I gather similarly in the UK) before metrication we had all sorts of odd units - rods, perches, acres, stones etc. - that had no sensible conversion factors between them. It was so confusing that essentially all school exercise books had their back covers jam-packed with Imperial tables and conversions. To make matters worse, when learning science in high school we had to use the Imperial system as well as both metric systems the CGS and MKS (nowadays essentially the SI system) and we had to be able to convert between their different units with ease (an exam paper could easily have poundals in one question and ergs in another - or even within the same question if conversions were required). If one wasn't careful large errors would result. For example, if one converted poundals into ergs and or joules or vice versa one could be way off by orders of magnitude as difference between ergs and joules is so very large. Add to that the fact that we had to convert pints to say centilitres , decilitres and litres - the now infrequently used 'deci' was alive and well back then. It was a bloody awful mess (no wonder we kids hated all that mucking around). When Australia finally went metric in the early 1970s it actually did one thing right for once (normally over here we're past masters at screwing things up). That was to temporarily ban some Imperial units from being used. For instance, 12" rules became unavailable, only 30cm metric ones could be purchased and schools only taught the metric system. This regulation was relaxed later but it annoyed many at the time. Nevertheless, it was a very cleaver move as it forced everyone to adapt quickly and they did (that most adapted so well was quite remarkable). Had both system run in parallel then most would have taken the lazy way out and stuck with what they already knew (that seems to have been what happened in the UK - at least initially). Thus, today, few here would know, say, what stone weight are, and those of us who do were taught in the pre-metrication era. Even then, it's been so long since we've used these units in any practical sense that we're now almost in the same boat as those who've never heard of them. As I pointed out in a related HN post some weeks ago, the UK's insistence on still using Imperial units becomes very visible to the world when they loom large in BBC and other documentaries, etc. The example I used was the great confusion that the BBC's health guru Dr Michael Mosley causes over here when, say, he makes programs on obesity/overweight etc. and all of his measurement references are in pounds and stones. As many here haven't a clue what he's talking about then clearly his health message is substantially lost. Very stupid logic! To make matters worse, it's not as if Mosley isn't aware of the problem because he's been here on multiple occasions and even made programs about diabetes and obesity here (and of course they have to be in metric units). Naturally - as is its wont - the BBC doesn't even bother to subtitle their docos with metric units either, which for many here is simply arrogance - hence my sarcasm about God's Own Units!