Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
I was bought up with the metric system at school, but to the most part have learned and prefer the imperial system. Mony not included, I am completely cluless with old money!
I worked for a few years in a builder's merchant, and the total mess of systems is really obvious there. People would ask for wood with the dimensions in inches, and the length in metres. Or with the dimensions in mm, and the lenght in feet! Ply was similar, people asking for a sheet of 8X4 (feet) 12mm in thickness. It is just madness.
What a confused state we are in, fuel is sold by the litre, yet we work out economy by miles to the gallon. Most people don't even know how many litres there are to the gallon.
Weight is always measured in kilos or tons. Never ounces, pounds or tonnes. Unless I am talking about a person's weight. Then its stones.
I cannot visualise how far metres of kilometres are, 200km means nothing to me, unless I try to work it out. I know 60ish mph is 100kph, so I can work out that 200km is about 120 miles, or just over. The funny thing is I prefer inches to cm!
I have a headache now!
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And your headaches (and millions like them) would be a thing of the past if we all just accepted the metric system in all walks of life.
The fact that a litre of water is also a kg of water, and can be measured by creating a box 10cmx10cmx10cm, is reason enough to use the metric system for everything - it's all interlinked in a simple way and the units function in base 10...if we'd been born with 12 fingers, or 14, or 16, or 1760, or whatever, then maybe the old ways would make some sense. The current mix of the two systems that you identified in areas such as builders' yards, just goes to prove how Britain's half cocked approach to this is ridiculous.
But anyway, still nice to know I'll have the button to switch between them when the UK's roads do catch up with the rest of the world.
