It is distinctly unpalatable to have something forced down one’s throat “for one’s own good”. While it is most certainly easier to make calculations using a decimal system and the metre and litre are useful, centimetres and centilitres are awkward as they end up being stated in high numbers in to describe orders of length and volume frequently used in day-to-day life.

Of course it takes time to get used to anything new and on the continent people have no problem at all in buying in decagrammes, but to my mind the imperial ounce has a ‘human’ feel to it. It is a very useful unit, as is the pound and the foot. I can visualise an area in acres far better than one in ares, not because I am more used to acres, but because it is the area one man can plough in a day (assuming he and his horse are up to it).

There is no stopping metrication but there is no need to make imperial measures illegal. The concept of such action is actually quite bizarre.

If people can put the name of their product on packaging why shouldn’t they put an imperial measure on it too? If the metric description uses an upper case character instead of a lower case one, what is the problem? People will still understand.

‘ and ” represent feet/minutes of arc and inches/seconds of arc. Potential confusion is dispelled by context, else we would need to ban words like the word “jack” which have more than one meaning.

A far, far greater problem lies in integration of the European Community’s symbol for the decimal notation.

Imperial measures will no longer lose their status as supplementary indication on 1/1/2010 – which personally I find to be a good thing.

“On 1/1/2010, Imperial loses its status as a “supplementary indication”.. IMO, that doesn’t mean that it is forbidden from appearing (as long as the metric measure is primary)”

Can someone clarify what is meant by Imperial losing its status as a supplementary indication? Is this in fact accurate (and in what sense)?

“Rocky” a mightier biscuit produced by Fox’s Biscuits, West Yorkshire, UK

See link: http://www.foxs-biscuits.co.uk/
Biscuit range and under “Nutritional Information”

The energy unit symbol shown on the website and on the wrapper is wrong “KJ”
The company have been contacted again: careline@foxs-biscuits.co.uk

Accoding to EU directive 80/181/EEC and also a now depricated part of ISO 31, the highway agency should be using “mile” (and not “mi” as suggested by Lee).

However it seems that the writers of the TSRGD 2002 which requires the use of “m” rather than “mile” had a cavalier disregard of their legal obligations under the EU directive. Although miles, yards, feet and inches are permitted on UK road signs, the directive states that the legal symbols shall be “mile”, “yd”, “ft” and “in” respectively (in accordance with ISO 31 as it was at the time). However, the government have seen fit to hijack the symbol “m” for “miles”, (it is reserved for metres) and to hijack the single and double apostrophes for feet and inches even though they have been reserved for minutes and seconds of arc respectively.

Furthermore, even though the TSRGD 2002 permits the use of “t” for tonnes, I have yet to see it in use in the UK – all new signs still use “T”, the symbol for the tesla.

As for non-rational pack sizes there is no need to be over-concerned, since as was mentioned in the previous discussion, if unit pricing is prominent and not craftily hidden, there is nothing to fear and much to gain from complete and exclusive metrication, no matter what the weight or volume of the final package.

This is engineering – everything’s supposed to be in metres!

Story from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/08/bt_thames_water/

Details on the damage: http://noc.enta.net/2009/04/outage-framestream-leased-lines/#comments

Why are some food manufacturers, major supermarkets, and leading stores like B&Q still incapable of always displaying correct symbols?

On the following “FARM FOODS” frozen products:
Cut Leeks 1 kg and Minted Peas 750 g
Instead of the correct symbol “kJ”, there’s the WRONG symbol “kj”.

And in a store today I saw the following WRONG symbols for the kilogram:
“KG”, “KG”, “Kg”, “Kgs”, “kgs”, “kgm”, “kgms”. (The correct symbol is “kg”).

Please don’t attempt to use plurals.
’3 ms’ means three milliseconds, not three metres.
(If ’3 ms’ is on a road sign, you could ask the Highway’s Agency what it means).

Philip http://www.simetricmatters.com