Leave or Remain?

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
Isn't it 250g? (where's my hard hat!)

I agree with the conversation of being in this silly in-between state in my brain. I don't know my weight or my height in metric, but always weigh food in metric and measure stuff in cm. I fill my car in litres but look at MPG (because my car is set up that way), often go for a 5km run but will ask how many miles the walk we're going on is,.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I fill my car in litres but look at MPG (because my car is set up that way)
I drove a car with an MPG indication for someone in the early 2000s.

I spent ages trying carefully to get it up to what I felt was a reasonable level, but just couldn't.

Eventually, I discovered that it was based on US gallons...
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Interestingly there was a program on BBC4 the other night about the SI unit for mass i.e. the kilogram. Up until fairly recently it was based on a chunk of platinum kept in a safe in France. Earlier units such as length and so on were similar, but moved to scientific definitions some time back. But mass got a bit stuck because it was harder to define a set mass, so the old platinum brick hung around for a bit.
Mass is now defined by a combination of a Einstein's famous equation and Plank's Constant (which had to be calculated to incredible detail, far beyond the platinum blob.)
None of this might be relevant for everyday use, but science and technology these days demands better precision that the 'brick' could provide, and that standard needs to be accepted worldwide. I guess if we go back to 'yards' though, we'll have to dig up King Henry VIII and measure his arm again. :P
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
00 scale in model railways is 4mm = 1 foot.

1:76.2.



I once asked an ex-teacher to measure something in millimetres, because I didn't trust her to do it accurately enough in inches,

"I can do it in centimetres, if you can convert it to millimetres".



None of it bothers me much, as I still have both systems running. It's just the amusement of the Imperial zealots confusing themselves that I really like.

I do tend to be more Celsius in the winter and Fahrenheit in the summer, but I'm working on driving the transition upwards.

In looking at a field, I still see in acres, but it's an easy conversion to hectares.

I once offered a bloke, well older than me, thirty bob for something at the boot sale and was told that he wanted at least 50p, which I 'reluctantly' gave him - having actually offered him three times that amount for it.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
What makes me chuckle of course is when someone will say 4.3 inches. As an example and I ask what the .3 represents. Millimetres is the usual response.
The inch, in the UK, was finally standardised in 1964 to be exactly 25.4mm, which was very close to what it had been before - only 1.7 millionths of an inch shorter, so it didn't matter to most people - and the US inch was as well, that having been 0.3 millionths of an inch longer than an Imperial one.
 

Trumpet

Well-Known Forumite
Some years ago I bought some corn on the cob from an old guy with a trailer full at Welshpool market. He was offering four for a guinea.
I gave him £1.05 and he told me that I was the first person that day not to give him £1.10.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Some years ago I bought some corn on the cob from an old guy with a trailer full at Welshpool market. He was offering four for a guinea.
I gave him £1.05 and he told me that I was the first person that day not to give him £1.10.
As if a 'Welsh Guinea' was twenty-two shillings, more of them to the pound than in England ?
And I'm never sure if it should be 'Welsh' or 'Welch'.
 
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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
As if a 'Welsh Guinea' was twenty-two shillings, fewer of them to the pound than in England ?
And I'm never sure if it should be 'Welsh' or 'Welch'.
Neither is a previous army regiment.

9781845741785.jpg
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Yes, that's how I've seen it on the war memorial on platform 1 of Stoke railway station and I'm not sure if I've been wrong with "Welsh" these past sixty years.
I only know about the dual spelling of the military titles from reading Robert Graves' Goodbye to all that.

In general usage, however, Welsh would be the nationality and Welch would mean renege, as far as I can see.

But, I do remember Bill Clinton getting into some trouble for using the verb form, even though one of his step-sisters was married to a bloke called Welch.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
I only know about the dual spelling of the military titles from reading Robert Graves' Goodbye to all that.

In general usage, however, Welsh would be the nationality and Welch would mean renege, as far as I can see.

But, I do remember Bill Clinton getting into some trouble for using the verb form, even though one of his step-sisters was married to a bloke called Welch.
Yes, and in 1959 Jo Raquel Tejada married the American James Welch.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
This bloody government is strolling into 'Orwellian' territory if it now wants to control the sort of programs we watch.

My reaction: Go Forth and Multiply (only adjusted to be just two words.) :grr:
 
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