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I find it progressive that more people now say "metre" instead of yards without any formal requirement to do so and eually as surprised as "yards" are still on our road sings.
Is amazing the Transport Department hasn't noticed this huge skip in word use and helped us move on like the rest of the Commonwealth ( err..the world really). Hearing someone say "yards" just sounds old fashioned now.
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metres and yards
I find it progressive that more people now say "metre" instead of yards without any formal requirement to do so and eually as surprised as "yards" are still on our road sings. Is amazing the Transport Department hasn't noticed this huge skip in word use and helped us move on like the rest of the Commonwealth ( err..the world really). Hearign someoen say "yards" just sounds old fashioned now.
Re: metres and yards
> I find it progressive that more people now say
> "metre" instead of yards without any formal
> requirement to do so and eually as surprised as
> "yards" are still on our road sings. Is amazing the
> Transport Department hasn't noticed this huge skip in
> word use and helped us move on like the rest of the
> Commonwealth ( err..the world really). Hearign
> someoen say "yards" just sounds old fashioned now.
I've never been fond of the "yard" anyway, so it doesn't bother me much. I still prefer quoting my height as 5 foot 7 rather than 1 metre 70 cm. BTW, does anyone here think of their driving speeds in terms of kph or miles per hour?
Re: metres and yards
> I've never been fond of the "yard" anyway, so it
> doesn't bother me much. I still prefer quoting my
> height as 5 foot 7 rather than 1 metre 70 cm. BTW,
> does anyone here think of their driving speeds in
> terms of kph or miles per hour?
It is all a question of getting used to. People around the world find it quaint that anyone uses feet in the 21st century to measure body height. Thinking of speeds in km/h makes little sense in a country sticking stubbornly to miles thanks to gutless politicians.
Why do you "belittle" yourself with converting 5'7" into 1.70 m?
Re: metres and yards
Imperial is the best by far.
I know my height in feet & inches, my weight in stones & pounds, the distance I travel in miles.
I buy fuel by the gallon (like most of us, it means calculating the real price/gallon from the daft/litre price).
I buy food by the pound - not the kilometer.
The best is to have a pint of ale (which is not a litre - it is either 2 or a half).
I don't understand metric at all - I'm 35 (not young or old!), well educated (private school, then grammar school).
I just hate metric - as Basil says 'We won the war', so why are we using the daft european system?
Re: metres and yards
phobiaRe: metres and yards
Posted: 08-Aug-2006 14:05 Reply
Imperial is the best by far.
I know my height in feet & inches, my weight in stones & pounds, the distance I travel in miles.
I buy fuel by the gallon (like most of us, it means calculating the real price/gallon from the daft/litre price).
I buy food by the pound - not the kilometer.
The best is to have a pint of ale (which is not a litre - it is either 2 or a half).
I don't understand metric at all - I'm 35 (not young or old!), well educated (private school, then grammar school).
I just hate metric - as Basil says 'We won the war', so why are we using the daft european system?
You do have a problem, it's called xenophobia.
[Edited by: Simon (moderator) on 24-Aug-2006 09:35]
Although we encourage strident debate on the Open2 forums, we do ask that users refrain from gratuitious personal insults targeted at other users.
Re: metres and yards
The best bit about Imperial is that it makes sense. We all know what an inch is - and 12 of these in the foot. then 3 feet to the inch.
The metric system is so confusing - similar names and using multiples of 10 to produce another similar name.
Mad system
Re: metres and yards
The Master, you're surely being ironic?
Apart from anything, you prove how confusing the system is when you say 'three feet to the inch' - yard, surely?
It's okay, though, because the system is arbitrary, so it's easy to get muddled...
Re: metres and yards
But fantastic for making watches, televisions and heart transplants.
And for calculating the weight of the stars. And making laser guided cruise missiles.
But hopeless for giving an instant impression of what the units represent.
Re: metres and yards
Just because you hate metric doesn't mean that imperial is 'best by far'. And why should you hate metric so much? 'Just because', or does it represent a self-esteem issue?
It's a bit like another huge generalisation like 'I hate Germans'. It's hard to take your comments seriously, Mr Fawlty.
I love your pseudonym, perhaps we should get together, master?
Re: metres and yards
We Soul Use Imperial Not Metric As We Have Always Used Them And They Are Easy To Divide Unlike Metric And If We Stop Using Them We Will Lose Who We Are And Just Be Part Of The EU And Not Britain.
Re: metres and yards
> We Soul Use Imperial Not Metric As We Have Always
> Used Them And They Are Easy To Divide Unlike Metric
> And If We Stop Using Them We Will Lose Who We Are And
> Just Be Part Of The EU And Not Britain.
In the face of this, this - THIS - I hereby totally and utterly renounce my previous robust defence of Imperial 'mensuration'.
For obvious reasons
Re: metres and yards
>I hereby totally and utterly renounce my previous robust defence of Imperial 'mensuration'.
Why should you Mr RichardJohn? In our previous exchanges you were always so rigid.
Re: metres and yards
Did you read what I was responding to? Would you want to be seen to agree with the person who wrote it?
In the meantime, the summer provides another example of the regular handiness of non-metric systems.
100degrees fahrenheit is within our experience, and we recognise it as very very very hot. The Boiling point of People, if you like.
35 or 6 or 7 degrees centigrade means nothing.
In the Winter, of course, the opposite applies. But only because 0degrees centigrade is the freezing point of People as well as water.
It's the human reference point which counts.
Re: metres and yards
> In the meantime, the summer provides another example
> of the regular handiness of non-metric systems.
>
> 100degrees fahrenheit is within our experience, and
> we recognise it as very very very hot. The Boiling
> point of People, if you like.
>
> 35 or 6 or 7 degrees centigrade means nothing.
>
> In the Winter, of course, the opposite applies. But
> only because 0degrees centigrade is the freezing
> point of People as well as water.
>
> It's the human reference point which counts.
I wonder how you achieved that unique recognition?
Could it have anything to do with growing up in an "imperial" country?
By the way, who uses centigrade and how does one acquire "a human reference point"?
Re: metres and yards
It has to do with being a human being with a thumb.
By being able to relate to it easier than to a minute fraction of the circumference of the earth.
You acquire a human reference point by being human.
Re: metres and yards
I'm a 'yard' man - simply because I am 72 and I visualise most everyday things in yards, feet, inches, stones, pounds and the like.
But - what are so many people getting so huffy about? That we are 'going metric' in inevitable - we've been doing it for decades and even I use it in photography. I have used 35mm film for many years and confidently use lenses of 20mm, 35mm, 50mm, 135mm and 200mm focal lengths with no idea of their imperial equivalents. Since the photographic industry has gone digital, companies help us out by translating lens focal lengths to their 35mm format equivalents! So - I may not like trying to visualise a metrically quoted record breaking long jump or pole vault, and I much prefer to be told a big second-row forward is 6ft 9 and weighs 20 stones than his size in metres and kilos. But if they stop doing it I'll just have to lump it.
I hope, however, that the young will still be made aware of our 'imperial' past for we are culturally engrained with linguistic and poetic references to the traditional measurements. A few samples:-
'Give him an inch and he'll take a mile'. 'Pound for pound', 'Nothing more than a yard of pump water', 'He'd many a mile to go that night afore he reached the town-o', 'milestone', 'yard of ale', 'inching forward'.
Mind you, they might have trouble with 'half a league, half a league, half a league onward'!
Re: metres and yards
I'm sure many of todays young prefer being stoned than kiloed
Re: metres and yards
> It has to do with being a human being with a thumb.
My advise is to ask a girl, or woman, about her thumb, feet and girth. Then ask them how theirs relate to the hodgepodge called imperial units?
> By being able to relate to it easier than to a minute
> fraction of the circumference of the earth.
So, you are telling me that it easier to relate to a yard than a metre? What is the difference between them, probably too minute for you to relate too?
>You acquire a human reference point by being human.
Nice one, so only imperially and USC reared people are human, what are metric users in your opinion?
Re: metres and yards
Certainly it's easier to relate to the size of your forearm or stride than, again, an abstract fraction of the circumference of the earth.
If you cannot relate to the parts of your body, then some part of your humanity has, almost by definition, been smothered or removed. As if you looked in the mirror and were unable to recognise yourself.
Perhaps an inability to appreciate those ubiquitous, physical reference points is testimony to the effect of prolonged exclusive exposure to metric units of length and weight for domestic puirposes and is, therefore, testimony in favour of the case that Imperial, organically based mensuration is quite important- the scientific importance of metric nothwithsatanding.
Re: metres and yards
> Certainly it's easier to relate to the size of your
> forearm or stride than, again, an abstract fraction
> of the circumference of the earth.
>
> If you cannot relate to the parts of your body, then
> some part of your humanity has, almost by definition,
> been smothered or removed. As if you looked in the
> mirror and were unable to recognise yourself.
>
> Perhaps an inability to appreciate those ubiquitous,
> physical reference points is testimony to the effect
> of prolonged exclusive exposure to metric units of
> length and weight for domestic puirposes and is,
> therefore, testimony in favour of the case that
> Imperial, organically based mensuration is quite
> important- the scientific importance of metric
> nothwithsatanding.
If you really insist to relate the length of a metre to your body here is how it's done. Fully stretch your left arm sidewise. The distance from your right armsocket to the fingertips of your left arm is appr. a metre. If you want to know the width of a cm, look at the upper part of your pinky. Mind you that applies only to average males, the vast majority of women cannot relate to these approximations That knowledge is like your body parts useless, because you can't measure anything with them.
So forget about your feet strides and thumbs, they might have fulfilled their purpose in times of illiteracy when people measured with sticks and strings. Move on from this stonage anachronism and embrace modern standardized mm, cm and metres. You will find life is so much easier when next you do a calculation involving area and most other things.
As an afterthought how ridiculous does it sound in today’s world when a space shuttle pilot says, we are 250 000 ft from touch down in a domain where even metres are dwarfed.
Re: metres and yards
You don't convince.
Human beings percieve the world in relationship to themselves, not to a Napoleonic fancy, however useful for making bullets.
Deny that and you are part of the way to making a robot of yourself.
And incedentally, we don't live in outer space. You just proved my point.
Re: metres and yards
>Human beings percieve the world in relationship to themselves...
I still don't understand how that makes your point. You say that imperial was born out of human meaurements and metric, the earth. Even so, people still refer the metric back to themselves in the end anyway. It seems to be working for most of the world's population, you must acknowlege that! Furthermore, imperial measures were standardised which is a homogeny that you don't like.
It seems to me that your ideal taken to it's natural conclusion would be all measurements being flexible, ie: everyone's 'inch' would be the length of their own thumb.
Don't you feel like you're in a minority with your imperial=human/metric=robot idea?
If so, perhaps you would feel more comfortable in outer space? :-)
Re: metres and yards
My index finger is 2cm wide. The widest span of my thumb to little finger is 20cm. With arms held out sideways a catenary to my tummy button gives a 2 metre measure for rope or cable. End to end with work shoes 3 of my feet make one metre. What's so unnatural about metric measures?
Re: metres and yards
when did you do the measurements?
Re: metres and yards
> You don't convince.
> Human beings percieve the world in relationship to
> themselves, not to a Napoleonic fancy, however useful
> for making bullets.
>
> Deny that and you are part of the way to making a
> robot of yourself.
>
> And incedentally, we don't live in outer space. You
> just proved my point.
I know that types like you can never be convinced because it is misguided patriotism that blinds you to the obvious. Measurements are only a surrogate enabling you to vent that deeply felt emotion. One can actually hear you say right or wrong it's my country. Well, everyone is entitled to his views, even misguided patriots.
As to outer space, I wonder where these shuttles fly to, inner space? Doing that they have to measure height in negative fathoms. It's getting better all the time.
Re: metres and yards
>I see now that you are unable to actually see the difference between the two systems. Which is slightly scary.
Don't be scared, save that for the inevitable demise of non-metric units.
>But not as scary as the fact that you are no longer able to see your body as an approximate measurement of anything. And therefore less able to relate it to the outside world.
I don't need to use my body to measure the outside world, neither do hundreds of millions of people around the world seemingly!
>You have become partly alienated from your own body. Which is a serious matter, whether you know it or not.
Sounds like a great trip! Why don't you try it?
Re: metres and yards
Why not try it? Because it's dehumanising, obviously.
You 'don't need to use your body to measure the outside world..'
I'm sorry, but you do, and have done since you left your cot.
How otherwise did we ever manage without rulers and balances to even take one step.
We'd have died out before we ever bred.
It's called Orientation, and we hardly use anything BUT our bodies to achieve it.
To define your position in the world according to an abstract, essentially political unit, is to surrender some of your humanity and become even more mechanised than you need to be already.
Re: metres and yards
Dear LRJ, your comments:
>Did you read what I was responding to? Would you want to be seen to agree with the person who wrote it?
It's not important to me how I am seen, I'm sure you can empathise with that sentiment.
>In the meantime, the summer provides another example of the regular handiness of non-metric systems. 100 degrees fahrenheit is within our experience, and we recognise it as very very very hot...35 or 6 or 7 degrees centigrade means nothing.
Only to those who want it to mean nothing. For myself, having grown up unaccustomed to farenheit it means nothing to me (more or less). For us who are metric-minded first we would register 30, 35 or even 40 as logical markers of hot in our experience.
>It's the human reference point which counts.
Agreed, but to us, metric is human. Sorry!
Re: metres and yards
Metric can never be human. It is based on abstract scientific quanta which only have any human scale by accident.
Many metric units derived from real, everyday organic units. That is the only real difference between metric and imperial.
Your claim is perverse nonsense. As rooted in your own nostalgia for the time you learnt the system as any Wurzel Imperialist and his pecks of snuff and bushels of corn. So don't kid yourslef, your attachment to metric is as sentimental as anything in the Olde Worlde.
Re: metres and yards
Dear 'Guest', your comments:
>Metric can never be human. It is based on abstract scientific quanta which only have any human scale by accident.
So what if they were based on science, so what if it's an accident that they feel human? The fact that nearly all the world's population feel as comfortable with metric as you do with imperial speaks volumes.
>Your claim is perverse nonsense. As rooted in your own nostalgia for the time you learnt the system as any Wurzel Imperialist and his pecks of snuff and bushels of corn. So don't kid yourslef, your attachment to metric is as sentimental as anything in the Olde Worlde.
Your attack on my claim smacks of desperation. Desperation fuelled by the knowelege that imperial is dying out.
Re: metres and yards
I see now that you are unable to actually see the difference between the two systems. Which is slightly scary.
But not as scary as the fact that you are no longer able to see your body as an approximate measurement of anything. And therefore less able to relate it to the outside world. You have become partly alienated from your own body. Which is a serious matter, whether you know it or not.
Re: metres and yards
It only means nothing if you allow it to mean nothing.
I started taking Celsius temperatures as a weather observer in 1969 - at that time it meant nothing to me. Thirty seven years on it means everything. I am not alone because in the recent hot spell everyone I met used Celsius when referring to the heat - across all ages and social groups.
Re: metres and yards
Sorry you don't understand.
Re: metres and yards
>Sorry you don't understand.
I'm sorry for you, Sir. Looks as if no one here understands you.
Re: metres and yards
>Just wanted to say "thank you" to the ladies and gentlemen who joined in for a chat!
A pleasure indeed, and although I haven't been tempted to rush out and buy 113.5g of sherbet lemons the discussion has bought back memories of times when my life wouldn't have been complete without a few in my pocket! Now it's time to go way and practice my metric megalomania & control-freakery in the real, and perhaps sadly, very commercial world.
Re: metres and yards
Well, I started it..so hope I can finish it
( with Sugar 'n Spice 'n all Things Nice..So everyone's "happy").
Although little could surpass Spanker's eloquant and sensible explanation of why we Brits have always required weights and measures legislation ( so we don't descend into anarchy with shoppers perhaps duped or mislead and potentially confusing or dangerous situations worsening!, I'd draw the analogy with the change to decimal currency.
We may all feel nostalgic and enjoy reading or hearing our old terms like "hap'nnies" "tuppeny bits" etc, but just because certain people can see no other way of ordering their Lemmie Sherbies than to say " a penn'th of Lemon Sherbets, please" ( a penny's worth), would that
justify us keeping the complex old system or indeed lobbying for its return?! I know certain parties would persue that avenue if they could, though am sure we are very happy to have moved on with decimal currency, remaining as distinctly British as we are with decimal weights and measures. I would find anyone advocating keeping £ S d, just because they personally like the sound and feel of it more, to be somewhat "bizarre and neurotic". Sweet? ;)
Re: metres and yards
I'm sure it's tempting to draw a line under this one and let sleeping dogs lie and we all live happily ever after etc (foreign as that is to the metricista mindset as we've seen, but hey ...) but there's rather a glaring admission in the last post that I'm not going to let pass silently.
>Although little could surpass Spanker's eloquant and sensible explanation of why we Brits have always required weights and measures legislation (so we don't descend into anarchy with shoppers perhaps duped or mislead and potentially confusing or dangerous situations worsening!)<
Weights and measures legislation ... well, you'll always need some of that, to a certain degree. But I have to say that we didn't see the whole welter of W & M laws until we had to take this foreign system (that the general public didn't, and don't, want) into account. Shoppers duped and misled? How, exactly? As far as I can see, to prevent anyone being duped and/or misled you need (a) one national currency and (b) one system of weights and measures. By that I mean that if one shop sells a product at such-and-such a price (in pounds and pence) per ounce/pound/foot/yard/pint/gallon (depends exactly what the product is, of course) and another shop nearby sells the same product at a different price per ounce/pound/foot/yard/pint/gallon, you don't have to be Maynard Keynes to work out a comparison between the two for value-for-money. Actually, although I've talked about the same product, the argument still applies with different products: you just need a consistent system of weights and measures and a consistent currency. It's not rocket science.
>I know certain parties would persue that avenue if they could, though am sure we are very happy to have moved on with decimal currency<
No idea. I'm not aware of any opinion poll that ever asked the British public if they were "happy" to have abolished L.s.d. I dare say that since it was a fait accompli, and was forced through without anything so outlandish and freakish as actually consulting the public on the matter, the powers that be decided it would be a waste of time. And they'd have been right.
I would suggest that trying to finish the debate in such a way to make sure that everyone is "happy", and then referring to your opponents as (in your opinion), "bizarre and neurotic" isn't necessarily the best way of going about it.
Re: metres and yards
EEK! We're slipping back into the debate when I thought we were wrapping it up!
Come on Shaker, Spankerbuoy, Riane M, Little RJ, Reality Button.... The sherbet lemons are on me!
Or marshmallows if you prefer.
Re: metres and yards
Agreed! Sherbert lemons for me please - provided they're the really, really sour ones with loads of powder inside and not the sickly sweet imitations!
I'll have a quarter, please ;-)
Sorry, I couldn't not say that, could I? :-)
Re: metres and yards
Make mine "Cola chews".
Remember them?
Sort of mini flying saucer shapes with nobbles on (about the same dimension as a "blob" [if you remember them]) They were pink and had a dark brown stripe through the middle (laterally).
Totally addictive and would only go chewy if you let them dissolve in your mouth for a while.
Then later have a texan bar............
Re: metres and yards
>I'll have a quarter, please
Oi, cheeky!
>Sorry, I couldn't not say that, could I?
Nah, 'spose not.:-)
Re: metres and yards
Hello everybody,
All this talk about Sherbert Lemons which should,of course be sold by the quarter, brings the thought: How long will it be before Mint Imperials are renamed 'Mint Metrics'?
Bill
Re: Metric Mints
About as relevant a Elgar's being renamed the .
Re: Metric Mints
Well well well ... two months away and the debate seems to grumble on lime an appendix going bad :-)
Best wishes for a very merry Christmas and a happy, peaceful and prosperous new year to one and all, by the way ... if anyone's still watching!
Re: Metric Mints
What's with all this 'Happy Christmas' stuff. Don't you mean, 'Happy Winter Break'. I might have been somebody who might have been upset.
Actually heard a chap say this in a shop. I expect he was preparing to snuggle up with a box of After 20.00 Hours Mints and a book. 'How to Metricate just about Anything.'
Re: Metric Who
Dr Who.
Now that's *ALL* in imperial
Re: metres and yards
It's not just sherbet lemons. Localised cottage industries have always used colloquial 'negotiated' measurements.
Heroin, for instance, comes in five or ten pound bags, and weed in five or ten pound draws. Crack cocaine rocks are priced by the vendor and from then on it's buyer beware.
Personal service relying on word of mouth recommendation as opposed to industrialised standardisation.
The one creates and supports a localised economy and the comunity that relies on it. The other tends to build Euro-subsidised out-of-town malls which deliberately set out to destroy communities.
Re: metres and yards
Why do some pro-metrics have to use the LSD argument to lose the debate? That gem never ceases to amaze me.
In the same way - a pro-imperial should never justify it's existance simply on the fact that 'time' isn't decimal.
(here comes a 'furthermore'...)
And furthermore why do people say that the Commonwealth is Metric? It's about as metric as Britain is!! That's unless the pro-metric has made another fatal mistake.
The "Australia = Commonwealth" one ;-)
Re: metres and yards
The 'imperialistas' have made a lot of noise about criminalisation of imperial weights and measures, as if this is some sort of modern abuse of the legal system.
In the 10th century decrees were issued for volumetric & liquid measures used in the whole of Saxon England to be based on standards kept in London and Winchester.
Was a rap over the knuckles by the local magistrate (and a sympathetic write up in the 'Daily Mail') the sanction employed to keep traders in line then?
In the late 15th century Henry VII sent out standard measures to all of the Kingdom. Did the shopkeepers of Lancaster become the equivalent of metric martyrs because the new measures were being imposed by a Tudor monarch?
No. They knuckled under because the alternative was the axe - literally!
Elizabeth was the next monarch to show concern over the nation's weights and measures and the lack of uniformity. In 1574 she appointed a jury to inquire into all aspects of the subject and on this occasion attention was also given to the troy system of weighing. Troy weight was used for weighing precious metals and drugs and also for bread. Under the ancient Assize of Bread procedure, the weight of loaves sold for a farthing and later a penny was fixed according to the price in each locality of a bushel of wheat. Assizes of Bread were an important feature of English local government from the 12th to the 19th centuries. In Winchester the Assize was carried out weekly by a jury of 12 men and there were fines for non-attendance. (with acknowledgement to hants.gov.uk)
FINES! - how un-English!
The Imperial system was introduced by the Weights and Measures Act of 1824. This Act abolished various old units, such as the Winchester Measures and Wine Measures
ABOLISH fine old Saxon measurements - whatever next!
The history of mensuration in England (vastly shortened above) has never been one of steady state, but of evolution. The Imperial system has reached a dead end in its evolution, there is no-one taking it forward, whereas the metric system has been subsumed into SI, which is constantly evolving as science, technology and trade advance.
From the Victorian era, through Tudor times, and even pre Magna Carta there has been a constant quest for uniformity in English measures. This quest has always been backed up with sanctions by the authority of the monarch or parliament through decrees and acts. Nothing has changed, except the chosen system. Imperial measures are dying, some are already dead and forgotten; just like the local variations of Saxon units that were used in cities around the country for hundreds of years.
Evolution is primarily based on survival of the fittest - and the Imperial System is not fit to survive in the 21st century - which is why it is dying. It is not dead yet, and could take another 50 years or so to disappear completely, but the signs are there, which is where this thread started some 222 contributions ago.
Re: metres and yards
So you support criminalisation of abberrant measurement?
You don't actually say, despite all the historical hooha.
And as for hijacking Darwin to support your campaign of uniformity, we've moved way on from there.
The argument is which is more human, the length of your thumb, or a fraction of the circumference of the earth.
That question has never been addressed by the uniformalists.
Darwin's ideas have been hijacked by too many villains to list, and understood by none of them. But all have them have gloated insufferably about the inevitable eradication of their (generally fictional) enemies. A sure sign of insecurity and inadequacy.
The obsessive need to perpetually tidy up. Everything in its place and a place for everything in the best of all possible worlds.
How nice. How tidy. How dead.