OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[AngryRam]

Nice to see you're back for your late night name calling rant. Was it sherry or port this eve?

Couple of pints of brave and the keyboard came out..

[Andy_Faber]

Couple of pints of brave and the keyboard came out..

1.13652 litres please. Ironically, whenever I use English to ask for a beer in Europe, the response is either 'large?' or 'pint? Even more ironically, and contrary to the precise measure I get in UK, the bartender will serve me whatever he judges to be large/pint, and I can't say I or anyone else ever complains. Vive la difference?

[ramAnag]

I also use imperial measurements. Much more intuitive, but I admit there are less and less operatives at deli counters who can understand a request for 6 oz of ham.

That said the market fruit n veg stall still only works in pounds and ounces. I still buy beer in pints, travel miles in vehicles, my height is in feet and inches and my weight in stones, temperatures are of course in fahrenheit too.

I’d dispute it’s ‘more intuitive’ GP...other than for people like us of ‘a certain age’. Ten times table was always the easiest.

To put this in some sort of educational context...I completed my final teaching practice in 1975 and was told then that if I made any mention of ‘imperial’ measurement I would fail. So, back in the mid seventies everything had to be taught in kilometres, centimetres, metres, litres etc and yet, as you say, 44 years on we still work in mpg, mph, buy clothes with waist, chest and neck sizes in inches and drink pints.
No wonder kids are confused and standards of numeracy have allegedly fallen is it?

[Geoff Parkstone]

Au contraire mon brave. When you had to know 12 pennies in a shilling 20 shillings in a pound, 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 8 stones in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweight in a ton, 8 pints in a gallon, 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yards in a mile etc you HAD to be mathematically literate and learn. With metric systems all in 10s you don't need to understand the basic principles. Metrication dumbs down maths and is directly responsible for increased innumeracy.

10 times table is easiest, granted, as we use base 10 maths, but if you only teach the kids the easiest things, they will have no concept of for example, base 16 maths as they no longer have a practical application of the concept that pounds and ounces would give.

On that basis, why not just teach kids the easiest words in literacy classes, so they just wander around saying yes, no, the, and etc and cant understand big words like inconsolable or artillery. Oh hang on, them does, innit.

[ramAnag]

Au contraire mon brave. When you had to know 12 pennies in a shilling 20 shillings in a pound, 16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 8 stones in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweight in a ton, 8 pints in a gallon, 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yards in a mile etc you HAD to be mathematically literate and learn. With metric systems all in 10s you don't need to understand the basic principles. Metrication dumbs down maths and is directly responsible for increased innumeracy.

10 times table is easiest, granted, as we use base 10 maths, but if you only teach the kids the easiest things, they will have no concept of for example, base 16 maths as they no longer have a practical application of the concept that pounds and ounces would give.

On that basis, why not just teach kids the easiest words in literacy classes, so they just wander around saying yes, no, the, and etc and cant understand big words like inconsolable or artillery. Oh hang on, them does, innit.

I don’t recall suggesting we ‘only teach kids the easiest things’. I was just questioning your assertion that ‘imperial is more intuitive’.
You speak as a traditionalist with a fondness for numbers and that’s fair enough. I wouldn’t dream of setting my bathroom scales to metric but equally I’m about to buy some paving slabs which are only sold as 450mm or 600mm square. You, I and many others are old enough and relatively bright enough to be able to cope with both old and new...others aren’t and it only leads to confusion.
Interesting perhaps that the one huge numerical change we universally made concerned money and was virtually made over night. February 1971 and we suddenly abandoned old money and adopted pence that began with a ‘p’ instead of a ‘d’. I’m sure a few of the elderly experienced some confusion and resentment but by and large everyone just seemed to adapt and get on with it.

[Geoff Parkstone]

When faced with your paving stone dilemma, I would (and have done with floor tiles) simply tell the vendor the area to be covered is, eg, 12 foot by 20 foot. They can work out what is needed. To this day I have no concept what 450mm square looks like, it's a wholly alien concept. Same with kilos of meat. Maybe my bad for not learning, but I genuinely cannot get a feel for metric measures in the way I have for imperial.

Sure I have the mental acuity to convert to understand metric equivalents, but nothing is intuitive. Give me a joint of beef and I will, on sight, tell you - usually within an ounce or so - how much it weighs in pounds and ounces. Ask me in kg and I have no clue. Give me a calculator and I could convert my estimate into metric, sure, but my brain still works in imperial. Odd isn't it.

Look at sports - a cricket pitch is 22 yards long, a football goal is 8ft high, 8 yards wide, the penalty spot 12 foot away etc. Or in metric, something else to several decimal places. Which is easier?

I can just about remember doing accounts in £/s/d having had a client once who was about 10 years late with his accounts and it was a pain as couldn't use a calculator. I can't begin to understand the maths that would make a computer work in 3 parallel mathematical bases simultaneously, so I get metrication of money as it's a universal exchange token.

I also remember both my grandparents being thoroughly confused on D-day and for months after. I'm sure many unscrupulous shopkeepers had a field day short changing people.

[ramAnag]

Lol...it is odd. Go back even further and I think a cricket pitch could be measured as a ‘chain’ or four ‘rods’.

Strangely I hardly ever do the weight conversion but the 450mm is easy...just remember 30cm (300mm) is about a foot and work in multiples of 30 or 15...i.e. 450mm = about 18’’...hope so anyway otherwise I might have some slabs for sale.

[AngryRam]

I’d dispute it’s ‘more intuitive’ GP...other than for people like us of ‘a certain age’. Ten times table was always the easiest.

To put this in some sort of educational context...I completed my final teaching practice in 1975 and was told then that if I made any mention of ‘imperial’ measurement I would fail. So, back in the mid seventies everything had to be taught in kilometres, centimetres, metres, litres etc and yet, as you say, 44 years on we still work in mpg, mph, buy clothes with waist, chest and neck sizes in inches and drink pints.
No wonder kids are confused and standards of numeracy have allegedly fallen is it?

Bit harsh for a drama teacher ��

[Geoff Parkstone]

they still use furlongs in horse racing, which is, I think one of the earliest metric measures in the imperial era - there being 10 chains in a furlong and 100 links in a chain. Sadly it breaks down then as there are 8 furlongs in a mile (on land). A rod is a quarter of a chain, making a rood the area defined in a rectangle that measures one chain by one rod, and an acre being 4 roods. Simple isn't it!

Links and chains sort of make sense, as does the unit of length the nail (at 2.25 inches) or the hand (at 4 inches), as measurements were set against something everyone could get a handle on and understand: the measurements are relateable - as opposed to the metre which is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the speed of light in vacuum to be 299792458 when expressed in the unit m⋅s−1, where the second is defined in terms of the caesium frequency ΔνCs. Right, so I see where that is coming from.

[mistaram]

they still use furlongs in horse racing, which is, I think one of the earliest metric measures in the imperial era - there being 10 chains in a furlong and 100 links in a chain. Sadly it breaks down then as there are 8 furlongs in a mile (on land). A rod is a quarter of a chain, making a rood the area defined in a rectangle that measures one chain by one rod, and an acre being 4 roods. Simple isn't it!

Links and chains sort of make sense, as does the unit of length the nail (at 2.25 inches) or the hand (at 4 inches), as measurements were set against something everyone could get a handle on and understand: the measurements are relateable - as opposed to the metre which is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the speed of light in vacuum to be 299792458 when expressed in the unit m⋅s−1, where the second is defined in terms of the caesium frequency ΔνCs. Right, so I see where that is coming from.

I'm just grateful for my 20.32cm ***** and my wife is