Is it official metrication policy to be nasty to those who prefer imperial in the hope that they’ll “see the light”?

I think that many that will read this, who are undecided or don’t hold a strong opinion, will warm closer to the imperial ’side’

[To quote from "About this website": "Please note that the views of contributors to ‘Metric Views’ do not necessarily reflect the official views of the UK Metric Association." Clearly, some contributors express themselves very forcefully, but UKMA tries to persuade by reasoned argument. - Editor]

The same with horse power. A 100 HP motor sounds more powerful then 75 kW. A person is expected to image that the 100 HP is like a team of 100 horses doing the work. That sounds more impressive then the imagery of the power of 750 – 100 W light bulbs.

Pricing per pound is made to sound cheaper then pricing per kilogram. However, pricing per 100 g can be made to sound cheaper then pricing per pound. There is an advantage to the shop to price in pounds and display the amount vended in grams. The shop can push a bit more product.

When the consumer asks for a pound and they see the scale is going over a pound, they can always yell STOP. When it is in grams they have to depend on the sales clerk to stop at the amount asked for (if in pounds). In this case, they will be much more over then if the customer yells stop. The clerk will always ask if the over amount is OK, to which the customer usually responds positively. The customer is aware the cost to him/her will be more then the unit price on the sign, but they accept it as normal when two units are used in the market.

The moral of the story is that whatever methods work best to increase the sale of products by the shop will be employed. Dual pricing can also be used to justify price increases as there is a cost in both material and labour to mark everything twice. The shop will feel the consumer is willing to pay the extra price (possibly slightly inflated then what it costs to provide the supplemental unit pricing) just to see obsolete units and justify charging more for the privilege. Of course the shopper is never told they are paying more to have pricing added in imperial.

In metric there are a number of choices, the preferred one depending on circumstance:

e.g.

1.73 m
1 m 73
173 cm
1730 mm

Despite the number of variants no arithmetic is required. In two cases single whole numbers only are used.

I would argue that the second form is only ever used because of the habits inherited the from non-metric unit conventions where progressively larger quantities are expressed in larger units but with the remainder in smaller units where precision requires it. As those smaller units are related to larger ones by non-decimal factors the decimal point cannot be used and so two separate numbers are required, as well as a certain amount of conscious arithmetic. Ok feet and inches aren’t too bad in this respect but what about stones and pounds – how many people know their 14 times table?

Unfortunately there are some places I cannot do this – ok, so I can approximate 1 yard to 1 metre for distances on the roads but when it comes to feet and inches… my car is 1999mm wide and 1684mm high and that’s all I know. I could convert this to imperial myself but what if I make a mistake? I’ve also seen dual metric/imperial signs where there is a difference between the measurements so what if the people putting up the signs have also made a mistake? This in itself is in my mind a good reason we should not mix units.

Many, if not most, people do not know how big an acre is, whether 800 yards is more or less than 1/2 mile, how many pounds there are in a stone, how long a furlong is, how many feet are in a mile, how big a 10 rod allotment is, how big a 12-yard skip is (clue: it’s not 12 yards long!), what a sign on a railway bridge showing “4m 20c” means (clue: it’s nothing to do with bridge heights), whether a 100 bhp engine is more powerful than a 100 kW one, whether a 10,000 BTU air-conditioner is better than one rated at 2 kW, whether £1.99 per pound is better value than £4.25 per kg, how many US gallons are in an imperial gallon, how it can be 20 degrees one day and then 90 degrees the next, … The list is endless.

The fact that the continued use of poorly understood non-metric units for trade and transport purposes can cause confusion, opportunities for hoodwinking customers, and even danger on our roads is all too obvious.

The very use of the term draconian in the first sentence tells a different story. This is one of the favourite buzzwords of the opposition.

The other clue to this person’s true nature is the claim that imperial is base 12 and metric is not. This is yet another of the points imperialists dwell on. Yet, someone truly informed knows this is far from the truth.

Measurement systems do not form part of any number base. Number bases are strictly means of utilizing a quantity of symbols to represent numbers. In base 10 (decimal) we use 10 distinct symbols to represent numbers. In base 12 (dozenal) there are 12 symbols. Base 2 (binary) uses only two symbols.

What this person calls bases are in fact nothing more then conversion factors. All imperial and all metric are presently part of base 10 numeration.

What ever set of numbers are used as divisors have nothing to do with the system and everything to do with users’ choice. It is a falsity that SI is 10 based, when it is in fact base 10 harmonized. There is nothing 10 about SI other then the relationships between the base units and the prefixes. All units are based on a 1:1 relationship with each other.

The use of numbers used is not determined by SI but by the user. In the construction industry the use of 100 mm module is the norm. This means sizes like 100, 200, 300, 400, 600, 1200, 2400, 3600, 4800, etc. mm can be found. Thus the use of both rounded metric numbers and those that can be easily divisible by 12 or its sub-multiples.

The author is claiming that SI can only be used correctly if numbers that are in the 1,2,5 and 10 series are used. Yet nothing in the BIPM rules makes such a claim.

Staffroom noticeboards sometimes have congratulatory messages announcing new births with the weight in Pounds and Ounces.

Newsletters to Parents may also include Imperial units.

I wonder is there any school in the UK that considers itself ‘pure metric’, giving students 100% exposure to only metric units while they are at school?

If the government decided to adopt full metrication including road signage, this will help support the teaching of subjects, such as Geography, Maths, and Physics.

Philip Bladon http://www.simetricmatters.com

[Remember that this blog is also aimed at people who are not convinced of the need for change.  The letter - from an apparently articulate and informed person in an influential position - was a good opportunity to refute its author's flawed arguments - Ed]

Using an imperial tape measure, you can’t just read your height in feet and inches, you have to read the value in inches, then divide by 12 to give the feet, then subtract this multiple of 12 from the first value to give the inches. If you want accuracy greater than to the nearest whole inch, you then have to know how to express the number of inch subdivisions as a fraction. Different tape measures will have different subdivision units. If the subdivisons are sixteenths of an inch, then the number of sixteenths have to be divided by 2 repeatedly until 2 will no longer divide without a remainder. That, or you need to know how to count in sixteenths – 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, etc.

Measuring in metric is literally childsplay in comparison, just read the value in centimetres from the tape.