Topic: The Imperial Measurement system

[ErieRed]

A Yank here who's curious on the future of the Imperial system in the mother country.  How extensive is its use in public today?  Where is it officially recognized?  How common is its use in everyday conversation?  I mean, are most people likely to explain distances in terms of inches, feet, yards, and miles?  Do you talk about temps in Fahrenheit?  Do you use teaspoons and tablespoons in the kitchen? 

I live on the Canadian border and am a frequent cross-border visitor.  Most measurements are done with the metric system, but during sports broadcasts players are described in feet and pounds and many radio stations will give the Fahrenheit equivalent when doing the weather.  From what I can gather, you lot use mph on your roads, describe a person's dimensions using feet and pounds (or stone), use pints in your pubs, and...?  And do you think it will be maintained in the future or die a slow death?

 

[FiSh77]

And a gallon is a fucking gallon here, not like them yanks getting short measures

[ErieRed]

A gallon here is 128 fluid oz.  Is yours bigger?  Do your  gas/petrol stations sell in gallons?  The Canucks use liters.  Of course they spell it wrong, but we make allowances.

[SP]

A gallon here is 128 fluid oz.  Is yours bigger?  Do your  gas/petrol stations sell in gallons?  The Canucks use liters.  Of course they spell it wrong, but we make allowances.

Uk and Us fluid ounces are different too.

But a gallon is 160 fluid oz.

https://uk.smartickmethod.com/blog/math/measurement-and-data/measurement-british-us/

[SP]

Depends how old you are. Driving distances are still miles. People’s heights tends to be in feet and inches. Weight are in stone and pounds, not just pounds. Temperature is metric, but wind is in mph.

[CraigDS]

Depends how old you are. Driving distances are still miles. People’s heights tends to be in feet and inches. Weight are in stone and pounds, not just pounds. Temperature is metric, but wind is in mph.

Yeah they are the most used I'd say.

Footy still uses yards too.

[reddebs]

A gallon here is 128 fluid oz.  Is yours bigger?  Do your  gas/petrol stations sell in gallons?  The Canucks use liters.  Of course they spell it wrong, but we make allowances.

Petrol/diesel is sold in litres (proper spelling) but car manufacturers promote economy as miles per gallon.

As always it's a mish mash of both.

Prepacked food is sold in metric but loose food in imperial.  In pubs beer is sold in imperial but wine and spirits in metric.

And other examples posted.

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[Claire.]

Prepacked food is sold in metric but loose food in imperial.

Is it? Aren’t all the prices per kg in supermarkets?


I don’t understand imperial, at all. One of Alexa’s jobs in our house is converting recipes to metric, and the cup system is mad as fuck, no precision!

[reddebs]

Is it? Aren’t all the prices per kg in supermarkets?


I don’t understand imperial, at all. One of Alexa’s jobs in our house is converting recipes to metric, and the cup system is mad as fuck, no precision!

In supermarkets yes but in independents the prices are also in imperial.



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[ErieRed]

Uk and Us fluid ounces are different too.

But a gallon is 160 fluid oz.

https://uk.smartickmethod.com/blog/math/measurement-and-data/measurement-british-us/

But, "a pint is a pound, the world around"!  I used to watch Coronation Street back in the day, now I know why I was subtly jealous of the pints in the Rovers Return. 

[ErieRed]

Petrol/diesel is sold in litres (proper spelling) but car manufacturers promote economy as miles per gallon.

As always it's a mish mash of both.

Prepacked food is sold in metric but loose food in imperial.  In pubs beer is sold in imperial but wine and spirits in metric.

And other examples posted.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

During the short-lived metric system push back in the 70's, we got as far as putting pop into 2 liter bottles...and then stopped.  Starting in that period we also switched over athletic facilities that have worldwide participation and thus needed standardization.  Gone was the 440 yard track, the 10 foot high dive, the 50 yard pool, replaced by 400 meter tracks, 3 meter boards, and 50 meter pools.  That was a much slower process, though, as it required significant capital.  The high school I graduated from finally got rid of the cinder 440 yard track and replaced it with a composite 400 meter surface sometime around the millennium.  The pool at the school wasn't altered until about 10 years ago. 

As for my Taiwanese wife, American recipes have been a challenge.  In fact, I think she uses ignorance of our system as an excuse to get out of preparing food. 

[reddebs]

During the short-lived metric system push back in the 70's, we got as far as putting pop into 2 liter bottles...and then stopped.  Starting in that period we also switched over athletic facilities that have worldwide participation and thus needed standardization.  Gone was the 440 yard track, the 10 foot high dive, the 50 yard pool, replaced by 400 meter tracks, 3 meter boards, and 50 meter pools.  That was a much slower process, though, as it required significant capital.  The high school I graduated from finally got rid of the cinder 440 yard track and replaced it with a composite 400 meter surface sometime around the millennium.  The pool at the school wasn't altered until about 10 years ago. 

As for my Taiwanese wife, American recipes have been a challenge.  In fact, I think she uses ignorance of our system as an excuse to get out of preparing food.

Bonkers isn't it how much we messed up back then. 

The American cup measures though, I just bought myself a set of actual cups [emoji1]

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[jacobs chains]

We have to use imperial measurements at work all the time. Teaching inches and fractions to teenagers is hard enough but then trying to get UNC, UNF,BSF, BSW and BA over is a nightmare. It took me long enough to pick up let alone pass on. By the way no matter how new your car is it's brake pipes and a lot of it's hoses will still be in imperial measurements.

[ErieRed]

We have to use imperial measurements at work all the time. Teaching inches and fractions to teenagers is hard enough but then trying to get UNC, UNF,BSF, BSW and BA over is a nightmare. It took me long enough to pick up let alone pass on. By the way no matter how new your car is it's brake pipes and a lot of it's hoses will still be in imperial measurements.

That's another area, I hadn't considered -- plumbing and fasteners.  Hardware stores here stock fasteners in both fractional and metric because of the amount of goods that are manufactured overseas.  Pipe, however, whether it's galvanized, black, copper, PVC, pex, etc., is strictly in imperial gauges. 

[Nitramdorf]

I work with a lot of sheet material, perspex, alli, wood etc and we use both millimetres and feet and inches.

An 8'x4' is used when talking for ease of use, this becomes 2440mm x 1220mm when being more precise,

Same with a 10'x5', that becomes 3050mm x 1500mm,

Though the largest sheet is always a 3m x2m, never its imperial equivalent. That's the only time we use metres.

If measuring a building we always use millimetres nowadays. Whereas I used to use imperial when I first started work, despite not using it at school.