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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why UKIP Really is Scum
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
Actually the inches are much quicker:
3'4" is 40 inches, £12.60/40 is £0.315
4'8" is 54 inches, £16.20/54 is £0.30
And that was done in my head. For the metric I would have had to reach for a calculator.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The innovation of the metric system isn't the size of the SI units, it's the fact that everything is done in base 10 like our counting system so that 'conversions' merely involve shifting a decimal point. I can guarantee you I can convert between millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres far faster than you can convert between inches, feet, yards and miles. The first clue is in the names.
And when I need to do complex calculations I will indeed convert everything into SI units in standard form. I'm talking about everyday practical purposes, which don't require me to convert miles into inches.
Which one is cheaper by cost for the fabric, a £12.60 3'4 curtain or a £16.20 4'6 curtain? Which mathematics is easier and faster to do - (12.6/101.6)/(16.2/137.16) or (12.6/(3*12+4))/(16.2/(4*12+6)) ? Which one ends up saving lots of time if you're doing anything more complex than comparing two goods with one another, like, say, comparing ten different curtains of varying lengths and prices? For that matter, because it has been the populace's way of doing maths for 15 years at least, which one is easier to type into a regular cell phone calculator?
The problem you pose is deeply unrealistic, because the fact is in a country with a metric system no-one would ever offer a curtain that was 137.16 cm long or 101.6 cm long. They would offer curtains in measurements like 140 cm or 100 cm. The very fact that a curtain is 3'4'' or 4'6'' is a FUNCTION of the imperial system, not an asset of it.
I could pose the exact opposite question by picking a measurement that is nice and neat in metric and then converting it into something extremely complex and arcane in imperial. All this is asking is "which is easier - whole numbers or lots of decimal points".
But hey, let's not introduce a bit of analytical logic into a bit of rhetorical pointscoring.
[ 17. October 2014, 10:28: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The innovation of the metric system isn't the size of the SI units, it's the fact that everything is done in base 10 like our counting system so that 'conversions' merely involve shifting a decimal point. I can guarantee you I can convert between millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres far faster than you can convert between inches, feet, yards and miles. The first clue is in the names.
And when I need to do complex calculations I will indeed convert everything into SI units in standard form. I'm talking about everyday practical purposes, which don't require me to convert miles into inches.
Which one is cheaper by cost for the fabric, a £12.60 3'4 curtain or a £16.20 4'6 curtain? Which mathematics is easier and faster to do - (12.6/101.6)/(16.2/137.16) or (12.6/(3*12+4))/(16.2/(4*12+6)) ? Which one ends up saving lots of time if you're doing anything more complex than comparing two goods with one another, like, say, comparing ten different curtains of varying lengths and prices? For that matter, because it has been the populace's way of doing maths for 15 years at least, which one is easier to type into a regular cell phone calculator?
The problem you pose is deeply unrealistic, because the fact is in a country with a metric system no-one would ever offer a curtain that was 137.16 cm long or 101.6 cm long. They would offer curtains in measurements like 140 cm or 100 cm. The very fact that a curtain is 3'4'' or 4'6'' is a FUNCTION of the imperial system, not an asset of it.
I could pose the exact opposite question by picking a measurement that is nice and neat in metric and then converting it into something extremely complex and arcane in imperial. All this is asking is "which is easier - whole numbers or lots of decimal points".
But hey, let's not introduce a bit of analytical logic into a bit of rhetorical pointscoring.
Ahem. I was embarrassingly enough the one doing the example, not Arethosemyfeet, and I was doing it in favour of the metric system, as there are more things to do in a quick calculation for different figures. But Arethosemyfeet countered with what is essentially the ease of rewriting feet to inches, which I guess is true if you use it every day - which still might be an unnecessary, if reflexive, use of brain power IMO.
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think it's stupid to say that imperial was stupid. It's less efficient, and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The problem you pose is deeply unrealistic, because the fact is in a country with a metric system no-one would ever offer a curtain that was 137.16 cm long or 101.6 cm long. They would offer curtains in measurements like 140 cm or 100 cm. The very fact that a curtain is 3'4'' or 4'6'' is a FUNCTION of the imperial system, not an asset of it.
Presumably also depends on what it's covering. A 3' 4" curtain would look ridiculous on a 4' window...
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?
It would be interesting to know whether there was a correlation between the introduction of decimal currency and a decline in standards of mental arithmetic. I wouldn't be surprised if there was.
Charles Moore made a good point in the Telegraph recently, I think, that introducing decimal currency cut us off from our past. In the late 60s / early 70s, it was possible to have a penny bearing the head of Queen Victoria in one's pocket. With decimalisation, all that was swept away.
[ 17. October 2014, 10:40: Message edited by: Anglican't ]
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think it's stupid to say that imperial was stupid. It's less efficient, and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe.
It's less efficient to write "The imperial measurements are less efficient and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe."
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think it's stupid to say that imperial was stupid. It's less efficient, and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe.
It's less efficient to write "The imperial measurements are less efficient and also not in harmony with the rest of Europe."
That's just stupid.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?
It would be interesting to know whether there was a correlation between the introduction of decimal currency and a decline in standards of mental arithmetic. I wouldn't be surprised if there was.
For the Lord in his wisdom did not create arithmetics to serve man, but man to serve arithmetics.
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Charles Moore made a good point in the Telegraph recently, I think, that introducing decimal currency cut us off from our past. In the late 60s / early 70s, it was possible to have a penny bearing the head of Queen Victoria in one's pocket. With decimalisation, all that was swept away.
Among the other things that "cut us off from our past" are pasteurised milk, clean drinking water, hot showers and closed sewers.
Oh, and electricity, television and planes.
And women's suffrage.
Why can't people just leave everything ALONE so that we can live just as our ancestors did?
That's what I think of his "good point". It's a piece of knee-jerk nostalgia that has no intellectual rigour whatsoever behind it. He's probably got a million and one pieces of technology, from mobile phones to cars to light bulbs to flushing lavatories, that would be completely foreign to Queen Victoria but he gets all choked up about seeing her head on a bit of metal which he would spend on products that were completely inconceivable at the time the coin was minted.
[ 17. October 2014, 11:05: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
YMMV and all that, but I think there's a difference between 'stuff that makes measurable improvements to life, including saving it' and 'nice stuff that's part of my heritage'.
In the 50s and 60s people bulldozed loads of Victorian buildings because the old was considered somehow 'bad', whereas now we seem to have a more enlightened view towards conserving older buildings. The fact that a terraced house wasn't originally designed to house an indoor lavatory isn't a reason in itself to demolish the thing.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I am nostalgic to an extent, but I don't think that having Victorian pennies in my pocket is a big deal. But my allotment is measured in rods, which I find utterly charming. However, I would not suggest that the whole country should begin using rods and perches!
But then, as Jasper Carrott used to say, nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Now Jasper Carrott, there is a nostalgic name.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
YMMV and all that, but I think there's a difference between 'stuff that makes measurable improvements to life, including saving it' and 'nice stuff that's part of my heritage'.
In the 50s and 60s people bulldozed loads of Victorian buildings because the old was considered somehow 'bad', whereas now we seem to have a more enlightened view towards conserving older buildings. The fact that a terraced house wasn't originally designed to house an indoor lavatory isn't a reason in itself to demolish the thing.
Yes, I often visit Bath, and in the 70s, the local council had bold plans to knock down tons of Georgian housing, and build better, newer, brighter houses!
Fortunately, there were enough people alarmed by this, who fought it. None the less, some housing was knocked down, but quite a lot was preserved, and very beautiful it is too, and makes Bath the gorgeous place it is today.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Let me take a more dispassionate look at Victorian terraces. An inside loo is relatively easy to fix. Inadequate foundations and damp course are a lot harder! When there is a mass demand for houses, then you get cheap and shoddy work. There was high demand in Victorian times for cheap housing with the rapid expansion of cities. The result is that many Victorian terrace houses has serious structural defects that are expensive to fix.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Anyone who wants to collect Victorian pennies, can.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
If there's one thing the EU should do, it's remove stupid national anachronisms such as the imperial measurements.
Well, they could, but I think that would make a British Exit much more likely.
Really? Aren't there better anti-EU arguments than a system of measurements that is easier to use than one based on agriculture in the Middle Ages?
Yes, of course there are. But imperial measurements are very much part of everyday life in the UK: from pints of beer and milk to roadsigns in miles to people of all ages describing their height in feet and inches. An die Freude might think the system 'stupid' but tens of millions of Britons would disagree.
I think the Britons who disagree the most are older people (them again). Those of us who grew up using metric in school are less uncomfortable with it, ISTM.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I think the Britons who disagree the most are older people (them again). Those of us who grew up using metric in school are less uncomfortable with it, ISTM.
Yes, possibly. Younger people do use metric more often, definitely. But having grown up in the 80s and 90s, when children were educated formally only in the metric system, I don't know anyone of my age who would describe themselves as '1.8 metres' or whatever. The only people I know who use kilometres to describe distances are not British.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I've only just turned 30. I think by most standards I'm still just about considered young. I was taught metric units at school, along with imperial conversion factors.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
OK, we aren't in harmony with the rest of Europe? That would be the Europe where French market traders have still been working in old weights. (Recent information not available.) Where the standard measure for timber is 30cm, curiously very close to the foot.
When teaching, the problem with weights was that a gramme was too small for a child to get a feel for, and a kilo too heavy, where an ounce and a pound were graspable. We were supposed to do a lot of estimating weights and measures, and that became hard. Also, there is now nothing between ml and l, and cm and m, since one is not supposed to use deci anything. As for using mm for measuring in the building trade, when a saw cut is a couple of mm wide... that is not sensible.
I was using both sets of measures for a long time, with no problem. One in the lab and one everywhere else.
Cooking - a table spoon is near enough an ounce - start saying it is 25 g, and a precision is implied which isn't true. Counting tbsp into a bowl is much easier when its 1,2,3... than when it is 25,50,75. We could cut up an 8 ounce block of butter or marge easily into ounces - halve it one way, halve it the other, then halve each half again.
Using fractions of a quantity. 12 divides nicely into halves, quarters, thirds, sixths and twelfths. 16 was even better, except for thirds. And the weights stack well and enable calcultions in binary quantities. Pints divided well - we had sets of measuring jugs at school where each was a half of the size above, and we had fraction of a gill (quarter pint).
10 only does halves, fifths and tenths. the latter two can't easily be folded or estimated by sight. The reason for that is that an odd number of appendages is more resilient in an animal design than an even, five is less easy to split than four or six.
Decimal arithmetic is, I admit, simpler - I wasted a lot of eleven year old time having to do long multiplication and division of bushels, pecks and tons, working in multiple bases in the same calculation, forbidden to look at the back of the exercise book.
But the old measures were people sized. At least in the kitchen and the sewing room. They were estimatable, easy to work with, and carryable. Not in the least ridiculous.
And many houses, my own included, have imperially sized features, which need imperially sized things to fit them. It's daft to translate 3ft 6 ins into metric and expect to get it to fit. Like NASA does.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I've only just turned 30. I think by most standards I'm still just about considered young.
As someone who considers himself relatively young still, but is three years older than you, I whole-heartedly agree.
quote:
I was taught metric units at school, along with imperial conversion factors.
I remember one maths lesson (aged c. 14) which dealt with imperial measurements. Everything else was in metric. I presumed this experience was fairly common?
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But the old measures were people sized.
This is the key to its longevity, isn't it? As you say, a foot is about a foot.
Also, we have these debates about whether a unit that is divisible by 100 and by 1000 is easier to work with than something which isn't, and yet no-one seriously complains about a system of 60-minute hours, 24-hour days, 7-day weeks and 4-and-a-bit-week months.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Imperial makes more sense than metric.
And when considering which to use for things like cooking, measuring dress material, etc, one should bear in mind the history.
The metric system as it is now is was introduced in France after the revolution although various attempts at a standard measure had been proposed for a long time - one of the most sophisticated systems was proposed by a Brit! It encountered resistance in France so N Buonaparte introduced mesures usuelles - a sort of half-way house between metric and the old French system.
Where imperial scores is that the measurements seem more 'natural' with everything able to be divided into two almost ad nauseam.
In the UK schools have actually compounded the problem with the use of centimetres, which has spread through to home-produced things like flat-pack furniture; the construction industry uses millimetres and has done for the past 45 years or so.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
Like most Brits my age (I'm 52) I grew up using metric and SI units for maths and science in school, but was (and for the most part still am) more comfortable with Imperial units for everyday life.
I was 9 when we changed to decimal currency, so while I remember the old coins with a certain fondness, I'm quite content to think in 10s to count things up.
For other measurements though (cooking*, driving distances, clothes sizes, paper sizes ...) I'm still inclined to think in Imperial.
Weather's an interesting one: temperatures here are always given in Centigrade, rainfall in millimetres and snowfall in centimetres, but I find myself mentally converting the temperatures to Fahrenheit (especially in the summer) and the rainfall and snowfall to inches (or occasionally feet ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) ).
* Since moving to Canada I've had to get used to measuring cooking ingredients in cups, which is a Whole Nother Thing ... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Really, you should be bemoaning the loss of the good old days of shillings and pounds and guineas. Isn't it disgusting how they got rid of all that good old traditional British money and made it 100 pence to the pound?
Yes. I still am bemoaning it but nobody listens when I point out that the 5p someone has just shelled out for a supermarket carrier bag is actually a whole shilling.
There was no real point in introducing decimal currency at the time. It didn't bring Britain in line with Europe - only the single currency could really do that and that was never an option in the 70s. The immediate difference was that the cost of everything went up overnight once it was decimalized, with "rounding up".
I don't bother with Centigrade and I never buy things in portions of grammes, I continue to buy a quarter or half pound of something. It's silly to fill up the car's petrol tank with litres then drive off at a speed of X miles per hour. Bring back the gallon.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Celsius.
The good thing about SI is that everything, except time, relates to everything else. Doing scientific calculations about masses under acceleration, for example, must have been appalling when you couldn't just fiddle with the mantissa (? - the superscript figure after the 10).
[ 17. October 2014, 16:36: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Oh for fucks sake. If only I was older, I'd be aware how Australia abandoned civilised measurement for wild savagery in 1966. That's the impression some of you give. Apparently we joined billions of people in using a system that makes LESS sense.
And yet, somehow, the moves are always one way. People keep ADOPTING metric instead of abandoning it. How peculiar. Good on the UK and US for not going backwards like everyone else.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But the old measures were people sized.
This is the key to its longevity, isn't it? As you say, a foot is about a foot.
Yes indeed. Feet and stones are convenient numbers for measuring and weighing people, but mostly it's just habit.
Having moved to the US, I've got used to seeing and using measurements expressed in mils (that's a thousandth of an inch), and the absolutely delightful US customary survey foot, which differs from the international standard foot by two parts in a million.
There's no particularly good reason for that - these units are not superior to SI ones - but the frictional costs associated with changing standards are huge.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Oh for fucks sake. If only I was older, I'd be aware how Australia abandoned civilised measurement for wild savagery in 1966. That's the impression some of you give. Apparently we joined billions of people in using a system that makes LESS sense.
And yet, somehow, the moves are always one way. People keep ADOPTING metric instead of abandoning it. How peculiar. Good on the UK and US for not going backwards like everyone else.
Thing is, the UK officially went metric years ago (with a few exceptions), schools have taught primarily in metric too. A lot of us still use imperial measures because they work well for us. I fail to see why, as has been suggested up thread, we should be forced to abandon them because the likes of you don't like them.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
If you like them, then use them. At home, where it doesn't matter to anyone else. In business however it makes sense for businesses and consumers to have a single unified system.
Some say that the EU has moved on too far from its roots as a 'Common Market' but it wouldn't make sense for some grocers to sell sugar by the pound while others sell by the kilogramme.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Strange how a rant about UKIP has stimulated a discussion on metric vs imperial measurements.
A long while back ,(35 yrs or so), there was some geezer down our way who refused sell anything in metric measures. He was always making news in the local rag as he ran the first big 'stack em high, sell em cheap' department store in SW England.
As I recall this individual was regarded as something of a maverick/jerk at the time. Got a feeling he also headed up the campaign to bring back the two minutes silence on Nov 11th and such like.
The point of interest being that old resentments/issues over Europe, harboured by a few old fuddy duddies, appear to have morphed with a whole lot of other stuff to become something that is now finding popular appeal.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If you like them, then use them. At home, where it doesn't matter to anyone else. In business however it makes sense for businesses and consumers to have a single unified system.
Some say that the EU has moved on too far from its roots as a 'Common Market' but it wouldn't make sense for some grocers to sell sugar by the pound while others sell by the kilogramme.
So long as they all sell it by the kilogram and label it as such, why is it a problem if they also label and sell it by the pound if they choose to? Where's the harm? The pound has a precisely defined metric equivalent, so the only issue might be a rounding discrepancy.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
"Imperial for individuals; metric for machines."
It's more like "we're never going to accept something the French thought of".
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If you like them, then use them. At home, where it doesn't matter to anyone else. In business however it makes sense for businesses and consumers to have a single unified system.
Some say that the EU has moved on too far from its roots as a 'Common Market' but it wouldn't make sense for some grocers to sell sugar by the pound while others sell by the kilogramme.
So long as they all sell it by the kilogram and label it as such, why is it a problem if they also label and sell it by the pound if they choose to? Where's the harm? The pound has a precisely defined metric equivalent, so the only issue might be a rounding discrepancy.
There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Imperial makes more sense than metric.
Where imperial scores is that the measurements seem more 'natural' with everything able to be divided into two almost ad nauseam.
In the UK schools have actually compounded the problem with the use of centimetres, which has spread through to home-produced things like flat-pack furniture; the construction industry uses millimetres and has done for the past 45 years or so.
Except that's the one annoying thing about imperial measurements. It does in a few cases but so barely and inconsistently to hardly be worth counting.
On the mile v kilometer comparison the imperial system you can exactly divide a yard, foot and mile by 0,1 and 2 times more than the equivalent metric working size (the intermediate distances it loses). And in the small time it takes to remember if dividing 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 22 you could remember 100/8=12.5.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But the old measures were people sized.
This is the key to its longevity, isn't it? As you say, a foot is about a foot.
For what it's worth a Adults Size 11 Shoe (excluding the sole but including about an inch) is about a foot.
A normal (persons) foot is about 10 inches (or 1/4 of a meter).
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
I don't bother with Centigrade and I never buy things in portions of grammes, I continue to buy a quarter or half pound of something. It's silly to fill up the car's petrol tank with litres then drive off at a speed of X miles per hour. Bring back the gallon.
I take it you're part of the "fog in the Channel, continent cut off" brigade. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
I use Centigrade all the time, buy pretty much everything in kilos and grams, run in kilometres, and you've clearly forgotten why we buy petrol in litres: initially so that the older pumps didn't have to be changed when the price tipped over the £1 mark, and latterly so old people don't go "how much?" when they fill up.
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells. Long live SI.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
UKIP MEP says Green policies are "half-baked and borderline-extremist".
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Oh crap. Now my irony detectors have gone into meltdown.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.
I rather seem to recall a transitional period where supermarkets did quote prices in both pounds and kilos. One in large print, one in smaller print. And rather like the entirely normal practice of quoting a price for the box / tin / packet, and then, in small print, a price per 100g or whatever, there was no confusion in doing this.
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
For what it's worth a Adults Size 11 Shoe (excluding the sole but including about an inch) is about a foot.
Would that be a male adult, or a female adult? And in what country?
(UK shoe sizes are foot length in barleycorns with an offset. US sizes are also foot length in barleycorns, but the offsets are different from the UK, and also different for men and women.)
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.
Bollocks. It never had in any butcher, grocer, sweetshop, or indeed any other shop I've used that has done precisely this. Almost every butcher I've ever been in labels their produce by the pound and by the kilogram. Given that most will also knock a few pence off the total to avoid faffing around with pennies it really doesn't matter. Besides, at the level of rounding we're talking about, you might as well quibble about the weight of the paper the meat is wrapped in.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
For what it's worth a Adults Size 11 Shoe (excluding the sole but including about an inch) is about a foot.
Would that be a male adult, or a female adult? And in what country?
(UK shoe sizes are foot length in barleycorns with an offset. US sizes are also foot length in barleycorns, but the offsets are different from the UK, and also different for men and women.)
UK sizes (which I think is the same M&F).
(I guess I have some excuse given the thread for being so anglocentric ![[Smile]](smile.gif) )
Though the 10" average I quoted I'm not sure what qualifications were involved.
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
I just noticed that this thread turned into a vague personalized rantings about the metric system. Which is cute. Hands up anyone who prefers Imperial?
You're all fucking idiots.
I mean that technically, according to definition. Because anybody who has to actually do calculations in the real world will tend to prefer metric. Lingering preferences that make useful calculations cumbersome suggest that those kinds of mental motions are not important to you.
Oh, you are / you've found a scientist/engineer/technician who does calculations all the time and still prefers Imperial? Congratulations, you are / have found a functional idiot.
Imperial "just makes more sense" just means you're more familiar with it. If you bothered to actually try using any alternate measurement would build the familiarity you cite as fundamental.
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Having moved to the US, I've got used to seeing and using measurements expressed in mils (that's a thousandth of an inch)...
And have you seen the confusion when both "mils" and "mm" are used on the same product? It isn't fun.
quote:
... and the absolutely delightful US customary survey foot, which differs from the international standard foot by two parts in a million.
Due to the fact, of course, that the British and Americans used different barleycorns to define their inches. The problem was discovered during WWII when precision parts from one country wouldn't fit equipment in the other, so both changed their standard inches to be exactly 25.4mm.
However, surveyors don't use inches: they used tenths and hundredths of feet instead, because decimals are much easier to calculate with than fractions.
But surveyors still sometimes have to convert old surveys from chains and links. While there may be some rod and perch surveys in the eastern US, out West we instead get to deal with the original Spanish and Mexican surveys in veras. While the vera has had various official lengths, it was commonly assumed to be one step of a horse, so one of the first steps when dealing with an original survey is to determine the size of the horse the surveyor was riding 200+ years ago.
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
And would the metric supporters please refer to Celsius? If you are going to pillory those who like imperial, you might at least get the units you prefer correct.
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And would the metric supporters please refer to Celsius? If you are going to pillory those who like imperial, you might at least get the units you prefer correct.
Centigrade is an accurate phrase because it explains the logic behind Celsius's scale - 100 degrees/grades between the two fixed points. And yes, the freezing/boiling point of water is a better and far more useful arbitrary point than whatever was the coldest thing Fahrenheit could come across where he lived.
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
There might be an equivalent but to put two cash amounts on one item would cause disputes at the till. Not as dangerous as posting speed limits in mph and kph, but almost as daft.
I think it was a well-known high street store that went through a phase of putting the prices in both pounds and euros on its garments and saying it would accept either at the till. It didn't catch on.
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells.
Not round here it's not.
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agingjb
Shipmate
# 16555
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Posted
Does the absence of SI units from poetry suggest some unacknowledged legislation?
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Refraction Villanelles
Posts: 464 | From: Southern England | Registered: Jul 2011
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I just noticed that this thread turned into a vague personalized rantings about the metric system. Which is cute.
To be fair RooK, myself and Q-Lib have attempted to bring UKIP back into the debate but failed miserably.
I sure even Mr Far-rage himself would be highly raged to see to see an explosive Hell thread accusing his party of being 'scum' turn into a fire-side ramble over weights and measures. ![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I just noticed that this thread turned into a vague personalized rantings about the metric system. Which is cute. Hands up anyone who prefers Imperial?
You're all fucking idiots.
I mean that technically, according to definition. Because anybody who has to actually do calculations in the real world will tend to prefer metric. Lingering preferences that make useful calculations cumbersome suggest that those kinds of mental motions are not important to you.
Oh, you are / you've found a scientist/engineer/technician who does calculations all the time and still prefers Imperial? Congratulations, you are / have found a functional idiot.
Imperial "just makes more sense" just means you're more familiar with it. If you bothered to actually try using any alternate measurement would build the familiarity you cite as fundamental.
Only a total fucking moron would conclude that a tool that is best in certain situations would be best in all of them. I use scientific units for science. I teach the damn stuff every day. I prefer imperial for practical things in daily life. It's a personal preference, yes, based on what I'm familiar with. It's the same reason I speak English. Fuck off and go learn Esperanto.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Imperial is as dead as perches and ells.
Not round here it's not.
How quaint. A resident of Royston Vasey.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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