Is now the time to ditch imperial and go fully metric?

Peter – If you don’t like 100 x 50 mm, can I suggest 10 x 5 cm? It’s still metric and gets round your objections. The beauty of the metric system is that units are so easy to convert.

It’s still 4 by 2 in my book. 8 by 4 MDF. If you like 100 x 50 or 2440 x 1220 that’s OK. But when I worked, a piece of 4 1/2 inch pipe (it always was) was described as 114.3mm because we are a metric country for trade. Use what you like in your shed, but be metric at work.

There is no compulsion towards metrication, Kuba. This is a free country – we can use whatever measurements we like in our kitchens and workshops. For sensible reasons, many things outside the home are prescribed in metric units, but we still have roads measured in miles with bridge heights in feet [sometimes with metric equivalents alongside]. The balance scales in supermarkets show pounds and kilos. Most goods sold on-line are described with both imperial and metric measurements – it’s just straightforward commercial common sense to provide data that can be understood by all potential customers.

My favourite scales of measurement for big things are football pitches, Olympic swimming pools, and double-decker buses. Who cares about the exact dimensions?

4″x2″ timber was 4″x2″ in its sawn form. 4″x2″ PAR was less due to the wood removed when planed smooth. These days it will be 100mm x 50mm sawn, and 94mm x 44mm PAR. About 1/16″ and 1/32″ smaller on the two imperial dimensions. I don’t suppose we will revert after Brexit. Another case of products getting smaller? I don’t suppose we will revert after Brexit.

Please tell us which industries are still using the imperial system in the UK.

Peter, I don’t understand your comment. What “leading industrialists” are perpetuating the imperial system? It is certainly not my experience either in education nor in the industries in which I have worked. Miles and pints are trivial issues, and as I have asked before, what examples can the critics give of where the UK has lost out because of its policy? None have been forthcoming so far.

I was one of those “bright young apprentices brought up and programmed to use imperial, they are not going to be able to suddenly adapt to a new system.” By the time metric crept into Marconi and EEV I had left the industry and was in haulage where it is still MPH/MPG, though I do find it easier now to be in Tonnes than all those hundredweights to a ton etc. Thats about as far as my metrification goes, oh and the decimal coinage, I don’t miss £.s.p. at all, you had an old quid in coppers you needed double re-enforced pockets!

Cliff, “When I was working in the Offshore Oil industry in London in the eighties” – but we are concerned about the effects today, not 30 years ago.
“dubious about British products because of the bad image put out by refusing to move forward” – I think most would say that industrially we have “moved forward” and are fully metric, so this, if a true reflection of Aussie opinion, may be related to other factors. We are your “leading EU partner”. I presume you have the same view of products from the USA?
To quote your government website:
“Australia and the UK have an extensive economic and trade relationship. For trade in goods and services, the UK is Australia’s sixth largest two-way trading partner, our seventh largest export market and our seventh largest source of imports. The UK is also our leading EU trade partner.
In 2012, two-way trade was worth around $22.3 billion, with exports worth $10.58 billion and imports $11.76 billion.
Significant imports from the UK included passenger motor vehicles ($891 million), medicaments (including veterinary) ($788 million), and printed matter ($298 million).”

I found these trivial examples about imperial use in Australia. If correct, then just goes to show nothing’s perfect 🙂
a Plasma screen may be advertised as 42 inches (106 centimetres), and a computer monitor screen may be advertised in inches
Tyre pressures are often given in both kilopascals and pounds per square inch.[34]
The photo printing industry usually uses imperial sizes for photo dimensions (e.g. 4 × 6 inch rather than 10 × 15 cm).
the term dots per inch (dpi) is still used in printing pictures
Aviation, as in many other metric countries, uses horizontal distances in nautical miles and horizontal speed in knots, Height or altitude is always in feet and vertical speed (rate of climb or descent) is in feet per minute
some specialised surf reports give wave heights in feet
In informal and private contexts a person’s height is sometimes stated in feet and inches.[
the altitude for sky diving is routinely given in feet

Alex, I was merely pointing out the use of imperial (as a size description) instead of metric in Cliff’s adopted country. LCD and Plasma TV screens are quoted in their technical specs. in cm (in the case of my Panasonics) but their description in the catalogue number, for example, is their inch equivalent. As you say, this may be because of comparison with the familiar CRT sizes (although they were so much smaller than current TVs I would not have thought this very relevant these days).
The examples I gave were a bit tongue in cheek but show how old measures linger on, even in the most progressive of countries.
I maintain I can use whatever measure suits me privately, as long as professionally I abide by those measures decided as the official ones. So if I was an airline pilot I would use feet, or height level, for altitude, not metres. As an engineer I would use SI units.

I expect that many of us can agree that it does not matter whether people use imperial or metric for personal purposes (I hope that no-one is a control freak) and that industry has largely adopted the metric system in most countries.

That leaves the thorny subject of communication. Thanks to the Conversations I have moved from fitting in with others to encouraging use of the metric system in conversation with friends and family. I don’t think I’m going to change habits of a lifetime, but I feel that if more of us used the metric system in conversation we might move forwards.

I’m not sure where forwards is, or why it is necessary. Being bilingual, so to speak, has advanages.

I think we have been through this before. Those of us who are “bilingual’ – like thee and me – have no problems. It’s those who are unfamiliar with the imperial system, including children and the many people who visit from other countries.

Though I don’t want to influence what any individual does in their personal life, I believe that it would be helpful to get people visualising things in metric because that’s what they will find in shops and in their careers.

Those are interesting points relevant to our situation today as we start to seek out new export markets. I expect it is less of a problem now as many of the traditional attitudes have been driven out of modern industry.

In home markets, estate agents cannot break away from acres, feet and inches.

I’m with you Peter even if it went completely metric I can still only think in Imperial.

Peter

I had anticipated that printing and photographic work might turn up an example, and I have some familiarity with this. Over 20 years ago I bought a copy of Photoshop because it looked interesting and was cheap at academic prices. Although I can cope with imperial units, a colleague said that I would be able work in metric. I have always done this, whether I have been working with passport-size photos or display material produced on A1 and A0 roll printers. Some of the photographic paper sizes available do not match the 2:1 and 4:3 aspect ratios commonly used in photography. The A series paper sizes don’t fit in with convenient metric or imperial sizes but there is a lot to be said for this system. All the software I work with handles metric units fine and not once have I had a printer even comment on the fact that I have used the metric system when creating all the posters, booklets, leaflets, banners, cards and so on. I don’t know whether the printing and photographic industry favours metric or imperial units but I cannot see any good reason for sticking with imperial.

I don’t know much about the building industry, but if materials are labelled and sold in metric units it seems pointless to work in imperial. If it is a home project, then work in what ever units you like.

The kerbstone example seems a bit contrived. Sizes are not critical unless, for example, a damaged one has to be replaced. Suggesting that we would need to replace every kerbstone in the country is daft. 🙂

I used to teach university science students and they could cope fine with millimetres, centimetres and metres, but many new students did not know whether a micrometre was smaller than larger than a millimetre. That is understandable because they may never have used these units. Once they started to do some calculations and use these units in lab work it fell into place for most of them. I appreciate that some cannot relate to metric units but I am fairly sure that they either have made little effort to use them or they are opposed to metric units for some reason.

I have been monitoring the units used in Tesco, which I shop at for reasons I won’t bother to explain. It is encouraging to see so metric units being used on so many products and many are sensible (e.g. 500 g rather than 480 or 520 g.

I am surprised that kids don’t reject imperial units as something old fashioned that their parents used. 🙂

I was educated and went into research and industry at the beginning of metrification. All the industries I worked in used the metric system – although many items had been eartlier designed to imperial dimensions and were now “awkward” numbers. Steel pipe for example used to be,
e.g. 4 1/2″ diameter and is now 114.3mm. Still in use today because of machinery, dies and why not? In criticising the UK we need to distinguish between official (commercial and industrial) usage, and personal choice. I’ve been 6′ 1″ for a long time and intend to stay that way (barring slight shrinkage).

I rather doubt that the companies that turn out the old imperial sizes are still using the same machinery. If you stick with the old sizes then new producers have to install machinery specially made for the old sizes. Perhaps it is time to get our heads out of the sand. I think Cliff is right.

wavechange, no head in the sand 🙂 There is simply no magic in changing the size of something for no good reason. Simply using metric measurement instead of imperial is what this is about.

But there is a good reason, Malcolm. It’s crazy that industry switched to the metric system but continued to produce some goods in imperial measurements.

Wavechange, there is no point in changing actual sizes for the sake of it. Try sheet timber products for example – we get on quite happily with 2440mm x 1220mm. (8′ x 4′). What matters is using metric measures and their attributes.

I’m routing a groove for an intumescent strip in a (new) fire door. The door is 44mm thick – presumably 1 3/4″ in old money. Nothing wrong with that.

I think we confuse the metric system with the need for everything to be in easy numbers – not necessary.

Funny the Americans manage to survive as the world’s largest economy.

I’m sure we won’t agree though, and this conversation has already had most of these points made.

As you say we have done all this before, Malcolm, so let’s agree to differ.

This morning I’ve been using imperial tools because I’m working on some machinery that is as old as me. I have to put up with that, but I don’t see why Bosch has chosen to mark my replacement rear wiper blade as 280mm/12″ since it would not fit a car from the pre-metric era. Looking at their metric/imperial conversion, I wonder if it is Bosch or Botch.