Cameron backs teaching weights and measures in imperial

I was taught both in the sixties at school. largely used metric in my career as an engineer.

Time has never been metricated though so we will likely always have h:m:s

The americans are something else though, using pounds force and then metricating that to kips 1000ibf or also less commonly as a unit of mass 1000lb. Then have the nerve to say 'english units'
 
Judgeneo said:
Our mish-mash or different measuring systems means I'm incompetent in both.

I use feet and inches for personal height
Miles for distance on a map
Meters for all other measurements
Stones for human weight
Kilos for all other weights
Pints for drinking
Galleons for fuel
Litres for purchasing, cooking and everything else
Hectares for looking at land
Square feet for looking at property

I confuse myself.
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I'm exactly the same. It does annoy me that we're so all over the place but to be honest it doesn't matter in my line of work so I don't really care.
 
Judgeneo said:
Our mish-mash or different measuring systems means I'm incompetent in both.

I use feet and inches for personal height
Miles for distance on a map
Meters for all other measurements
Stones for human weight
Kilos for all other weights
Pints for drinking
Galleons for fuel
Litres for purchasing, cooking and everything else
Hectares for looking at land
Square feet for looking at property

I confuse myself.
Click to expand...

The irony for the houses.

They do surveys in metric.
They design the building in metric.
The builders uses metric.
All the working drawings are in metric.

When it gets to the estate agents...the god damn brochures becomes imperial.
 
Raymond Lin said:
The irony for the houses.

They do surveys in metric.
They design the building in metric.
The builders uses metric.
All the working drawings are in metric.

When it gets to the estate agents...the god damn brochures becomes imperial.
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I'm not sure how that's ironic, it just sounds farcical to me. Do the estate agents themselves do the brochures in imperial?
 
we build an design all our planes in metric, then measure all our drills, bolts and hols in ****ing imperial because the americans do
 
metric all the way, even pints, miles and stone would be metric except for our stubbornness to hang on to the familiar old ways, i'd grumble if they changed the roadsigns to km, but it wouldnt be a stupid idea.

the other way around though is a stupid idea, dunno about you but a nice decimal number gives a better impression of comparitive size than a fraction to me.

still measure my weight in stone and distance in miles, simply because thats the scale i'm accustomed to.
 
Gixer said:
Children should be taught both systems and how to convert. In my field, Aerospace, drawings from American companies are generally are in imperial measurements and European are in metric measurements. It's a good idea to understand both and be able to convert. Whilst both systems are in use throughout the world then teach them!
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They should be given an overview, like with most things in school, but that's it. Most won't be joining an engineering firm that deals with Americans, so will have very little use for the imperial system.

When I did my entry level engineering classes a few years ago, it was all metric.
 
Judgeneo said:
Our mish-mash or different measuring systems means I'm incompetent in both.

I use feet and inches for personal height
Miles for distance on a map
Meters for all other measurements
Stones for human weight
Kilos for all other weights
Pints for drinking
Galleons for fuel
Litres for purchasing, cooking and everything else
Hectares for looking at land
Square feet for looking at property

I confuse myself.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same here.
 
We should bite the bullet and ditch imperial, and the sooner the better. Until we do it'll never go away, we've had both in use now to ensure the transition will be smooth enough.

Remember seeing an episode of air crash investigation where an passenger aircraft ran out of fuel due to a metric imperial mix up :eek:
 
nkata said:
I was taught both in the sixties at school. largely used metric in my career as an engineer.

Time has never been metricated though so we will likely always have h:m:s

The americans are something else though, using pounds force and then metricating that to kips 1000ibf or also less commonly as a unit of mass 1000lb. Then have the nerve to say 'english units'
Click to expand...


the Americans are actually much more consistent than the British - at least they do use imperial units everywhere. What they do use is some standard units e.g. k = 1000.

The British are really the worst. you buy petrol by the liter and drive distances in miles, so have a useless fuel economy that you can never equate to the fuel you are buying.

really, Britain should go back to imperial if it is not going to fully embrace the metric system. Nothing wrong with pounds, feet, inches. etc.
 
Dyson said:
Exactly! No harm in knowing both, as many fields of industry still use imperial measures. The company I work for still produce new drawings in imperial, so it's not going away anytime soon.
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The UK oil industry still use foot and inches when drilling wells, psi for pressure and lb/s*** for weight... Then ft3 and bbl for volumes.

Personally I think both should be taught but metric being the main one. Even people a couple of years younger than me (mid 20s) don't seem to know what feet and stone are when talking height and weight... I use both interchangeably, for example miles when talking long distances/driving/flying but km when walking.
 
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D.P. said:
the Americans are actually much more consistent than the British - at least they do use imperial units everywhere. What they do use is some standard units e.g. k = 1000.

The British are really the worst. you buy petrol by the liter and drive distances in miles, so have a useless fuel economy that you can never equate to the fuel you are buying.
.
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Lol, this old argument Americans always make on this debate.

We keep the MPH for road signs etc because that is what we have all been taught and are used to. Changing the 30mph limit to 50kmh for no other reason than to 'be consistent' would cause loads of problems and fix something that wasn't broke. Absolutely pointless.

We use metric for the things that benefit and keep the old system around for things that benefit from that.
 
adolf hamster said:
metric all the way, even pints, miles and stone would be metric except for our stubbornness to hang on to the familiar old ways, i'd grumble if they changed the roadsigns to km, but it wouldnt be a stupid idea.

the other way around though is a stupid idea, dunno about you but a nice decimal number gives a better impression of comparitive size than a fraction to me.

still measure my weight in stone and distance in miles, simply because thats the scale i'm accustomed to.
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What I really hate is the forcing of metric into places where imperial makes far more sense. A prime example being steep hill signs. Old way - 1/4 (one in four) New way - 25% - What the heck does that mean?!
 
Has politics really stooped so low that the PM has to come out with this garbage just to appease a few geriatric rasists, who probally aren't far away from forgetting their own name.

About the only thing measured in imperial these days are drugs.

It's about time we stopped the winter fule allowance and lookex forward to a cold snap.
 
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