One area where we can successfully argue for imperial units on a practical level is the use of miles and mph over kilometres and km/h. Because the roads are exclusively signed in miles/mph the public use these measures rather than the metric alternatives and its easy to highlight the nonsensity of using kilometres and km/h in other fields. Here are a couple of instances.

A few people (myself included) recently emailed Sky Sports following the India/England test cricket series complaining about the use of km/h on their bowling speed indicator. The official reply was that coverage from abroad includes the host channel's feeds which are in their own system of measurement. When Sky covers home test matches in England mph will be used. Nevertheless I notice that in the current test series in New Zealand the bowling speeds are shown in mph only!

Last April I emailed Bucks County Council commenting that their council tax information leaflet, which stated "we will maintain 3,000 kilometres of road...", was unhelpful given that everyone uses miles when driving. I received a sympathetic reply from Mr John Currell , Head of Transportation who wrote "..in setting out simple issues in information leaflets we should work using the dimensions
that the public are used to hearing." Sure enough the equivalent leaflet for 2002/03, which I received this morning, has the line "This includes maintaining 1,875 miles of road....". Moreover they have added the opening lines "Buckinghamshire is an attractive rural county of some 600 square miles measuring 40 miles from North to South but only 28 miles from East to West" and not a kilometre in sight.

Alan
It is a pleasure to hear first hand that the mile is holding its own in England. The thousand-pace Roman mile measured out distances all over Europe and is also by coincidence a power of ten multiple of the natural unit of length. (You may well be aware of this.) The mile as currently defined is about 1609 meters, within half a percent of what it would be, namely 1616 meters, if it were defined as 10^38 times the natural, or Planck, length.
So it is not only more resonant with European history but also more in tune with nature than any unit which the metric system has to offer. The mile has connections with the cultural past and (by way of the Planck length) to some of the most basic areas of natural science (where Planck units are used instead of metric).

Besides, if the mile were tweaked by half a percent and made 1616 meters, then a tenth of a pace would be 16.16 cm. We'd have a name for it so we wouldn't have to discuss it in metric terms. The cube of that length is a GALLON, close to halfway between the US and Imperial gallons and thus a reasonable anglo-american compromise. It works out to 4.22 or so liters. We still buy stuff (apple juice, milk) in gallons and those gallons are fortuitously connected to the Roman mile and to nature's unit of length, so I hope we keep on using them.

Liters and kilometers are paltry, rootless, superficial units without substantial connection either to history or nature. Tell me about the French Revolution and the quadrant through Paris. Big deal. It amazes me that a government could consider giving up the mile.

The state school attended by my 10 & 7 year olds has taught them entirely in km, and they have no idea how long a mile is. It is about time road signs were changed to km, to reflect the real world that kids are inheriting.

In the UK kids are taught "imperial measures still in use today"

Plus the average teenager (ie post-school teenager) quickly moves to the simpler "miles". I've never hear a teenager express distance in kms!

Bob,
That's an illogical statement. If signs are not changed, then the real world remains as it is, in which case the appropriate action is to change the education to reflect the real world - not the other way around.

In the real world, most people don't own a car - if they did we would be well on the way to extinction from acid rain and other similar pollution - and most people (also globally) have no idea how long or short a mile is, nor any general consensus on what constitutes 'reality', so what is taught to kids in school - the metric system - ought to be the guiding light.

Sorry I probably didn't say it clearly enough.

Yes kids are taught metric in schools. They are also taught popular imperial measures still in use today. Look at the curriculum specifically for the "four items" under maths

You are all going on about how Europe is going to take over our country. I went to Windsor today, and in that historic English town, right opposite the castle, is McDonalds, Starbucks and Pizza Hut etc. You are obviously blind if you can't see that we have more USA culture taking over our country. I wish we did have more sophisticated European culture here.

I also think it's sad to see teenage British boys dressing up like African American rap stars, and talking like them. At least most Europeans are proud to be European.

{You are all going on about how Europe is going to take over our country. I went to Windsor today, and in that historic English town, right opposite the castle, is McDonalds, Starbucks and Pizza Hut etc. You are obviously blind if you can't see that we have more USA culture taking over our country. I wish we did have more sophisticated European culture here.}

Sohistication is in the eyes of the beholder. In my opinion only primitives eat snails and fish eggs, yet this is what the French are known for.

{I also think it's sad to see teenage British boys dressing up like African American rap stars, and talking like them. At least most Europeans are proud to be European.}

Americans are quite proud to be American. There is no difference between Americans and African-Americans. There is, however, a difference between British and European.

Suzzane, you're talking **** again!

Pizza hut is british, so is burger king (in town also).

Did you notice any other shops there as well as fast food shops?

Open your eyes! Open your mind!

To "inchesrule"...

"{I also think it's sad to see teenage British boys dressing up like African American rap stars, and talking like them. At least most Europeans are proud to be European.}"

Please don't be tempted to believe this. You are probably aware (from your billboard chart) the influence of British music. Suzzane is on another planet - what she is saying is totally untrue.

Here's a good one though...

"How many MacDonalds are there in Paris?"

Come on suzzane? Know the answer? You are sceptically anti-British and fully anti American!

Well, here's my twopence worth:

Burgerking, McPredigestedBurgers etc, are loathed as much in Paris for being evidence of American imperialism, as they are detested by 'primitive and proud of it' vegitarians like myself, here in the UK.

And in my opinion, all nationalism and continentism serves only the interests of profiteers and warmongers, in their project to fill the world with pollution and crap.

Hey! That was far too heavy!

P.S. I notice that the McD's in Paris are always packed (and not by tourists! - unless all Parisien tourists speak fluent French to each other!!!)

P.P.S. I have the qtr pounder with cheese when I go to McD - the beef is 100% in that one. However I do tell them to remove all that sauce cr*p and pickles, yuk!

P.P.P.S. Love the way the vegi-burger gets done in the same fat as the beef, yet all the veggies are happy to eat 'em. Either that or they go for the fish burger - coz we all know that fishes are great vegetable! Hypocrits!

P.P.P.S. And they wear leather shoes!

I'm trying to get a clearer idea of what it is like (what units one hears in everyday talk and on TV) after the Government decided to keep only the mile, pint, and acre. I would welcome some first hand impressions.

Do I have it right? The only units you get to keep are mile, pint, and acre?

Can that be reversed by a change of government? That is not even a face-saving compromise. But thank God for those three anyway.

I hate the eroding away of culture which is happening around me (in the US) at terrifying rate. The loss of traditional units language (some going back to Romans and Greeks) is only part but it is an important part to many of us.

In Alan Heath's shoes I would be very bitter because they SAID you could keep the mile. (Three traditional units is a pittance, a token compromise.) SO AT LEAST the government should honor that concession. Maybe I don't understand, please correct me if I have it wrong.
If you lose all tradtional units except mile,pint,acre then at least mile should be honored in historical TV documentaries where it is appropriate. Anything else is shows contempt. I would be furious.

But Heath seems to take a constructive approach that shows little or no bitterness. He writes the authorities email. Can foreigners join in writing email to channel 4 even though they don't watch it?
We do eventually get some British shows on our public TV.

Lacking evidence to contrary I assume BBC's Jonathan Duffy is a reliable journalist and refer to his
June 1999 article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_381000/381720.stm

Unless I'm missing something this indicates the only traditional units still legal are mile, pint, acre
(also other sources indicate double labeling allowed on foodstuffs sold in certain ways).

Very confused. Any clarification from people living in Britain with firsthand experience would be most welcome.

These sound like terms of capitulation. Maybe they can be renegotiated. IS IT POSSIBLE THE OUNCE could be saved?

It is Roman. You must be well aware of this. My dictionary says "uncia" (meaning twelfth) was a twelfth part of the Roman pound.

The ounce is also Planck. The easiest way of describing the Planck mass (a mass unit intrinsic to light and gravity) approximately is as a millionth of an ounce.

In metric terms it is approximately 22 micrograms or more precisely 21.76..micrograms. But a millionth of an ounce is a pretty good handle on it.

Planck units (not metric) are used in leading-edge basic research and probably have something to do with future units.

So ounce is strongly tied with (classical) past and with future.

Many other reasons to like ounce. Force can be felt with fingers, while gram cannot at least not easily. Ounce rooted in English language.

However I will just mention those two.

In India and Nepal, cannabis is harvested as a field crop and processed into hasheesh weighed in kilograms and tolas (11 grams if my somewhat hazey memory serves me correctly). But once the hasheesh reaches the UK, the dealers traditionally sell it by 1/16, 1/8, 1/4 oz. Now, during the transition between the 3rd world tradtional units (metric) and UK traditional units (imperial), the scope for confusion and deception is downright criminal.

my dictionary says the Indian measure
tola is equivalent to 0.4114 ounce

and that the word "tola" in Hindi comes
from Sanskrit *tula* and has the same
Indo-european root as our word *tolerance.*

So says Webster's New International.

The gram equivalent Bob C gives despite
his self-avowed "hazy memory" is on target
or just slightly low. No haze there (although
a faint whiff of smoke perhaps.)

I wonder how many of these nominally metric
countries have traditional units that mean
something to ordinary folk relevant to their
history and culture prior to 1900.

In the case Bob C reports the local people
apparently thought it in their interest to
retain the traditional measure and use BOTH
the metric kilogram and the traditional tola
in their business dealings. They found some
advantage (possibly nefarious) in bilingualism.

To Leanard.

As well as the mile, the yard, foot and inch remain legal quantities - in reference to roads.

Oddly Fridges are sold with volume in sq feet on a sticker that shows "approval" by the EU!

There are loads of things that don't get trapped by the W&M bill- we have pizzas in inches, and fans. Beds in feet/ins - the list goes on (and would be boring)

"Common imperial measures" are taught in school (re introduced in the 90's would you believe) - these include inches/feet/yards/miles and ounce/pound/stone.

The "common language" remains imperial. Some TV chefs use metric, some use imperial.

Interestingly the TVchefs that use metric tend to be complete w.....

I'll stop there, I think!

Leonard, on the topic of traditional Indian units, diamonds are measured and sold by weight. The unit of measurement is a "carat," stemming from the ancient practice in India of using carob seeds to measure small units of weight. The seeds are consistent in weight and a carat is 200 milligrams or 1/142nd of an ounce. Carats are further divided into points. There are 100 points in a carat. A half-carat diamond may be referred to as a 50-point stone (about 100 milligrams). It is important not to confuse the gemstone measurement of carat with "karat" used to indicate the purity of gold.

To SteveH,

the morning coffee tasted much better than
usual (it's 7:30) with that list of detailed
ways that traditional units persist in
England.

nothing boring for me (as uninformed outsider)
although listing all the well-knowns may be
boring for you. I would welcome even more
whenever you have time and inclination to
report.

what about those Continental Chefs on TV?
what do they come complete with?
Little gram-scales I will bet, because
they don't have spoon-measures and cup-measures.

It is good to know the school children still
learn traditional units. This is almost incredible.
People posting on battleboards and such often talk
as if education has been totally in metric for
several decades. Apparently there was progress in
the 90s towards enriching the school curriculum by
adding traditional measures back in? Still trying
to picture how things are.

thanks,

L

To Bob C,

http://unicon.netian.com/unitsys_e.html

There is an interesting website (the author may be Japanese, I'm not sure) which concisely summarizes in
a kind of objective un-argumentative way a lot of information about old systems

Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, Greek, Arabic

and also has summaries of some not-so-old pre-metric
European systems like pre-metric French and German.

I have not spent much time at the site but it seems
neatly organized as a kind of reference work.

Some of the traditional Asian measures of which you may have had firsthand experience could be listed.

BTW did you ever hear of an English unit of length (said to go back to pre-Norman) about half a foot
called a shaftment (the "-ment" part comes from an old word for "hand") which is the width of a palm with thumb extended? Or that of a fist grasping an arrow-shaft with thumb extended along the shaft. The odd thing is that fletchers or arrowmakers still refer to the tail six inches of an arrow, the part where the feathers are and the notch, as the "shaftment of the arrow. Half-foot (8 or 10 fingerwidths) occurred in several classical and near eastern systems also--two palms width--handier than the foot itself for some purposes apparently. AngloSaxons extended thumb to make with one hand a measure which in Mediterranean was made with two palms side-by-side. Or so I am told. Pretty obscure.

Leanard:

Sorry, when I mentioned that the list would be boring it was because of the number of "metric zealots" in the UK (who also exist in US) that appear to live in this dream world of total metric - with words like "Britain went metric over 30 yrs ago" (see www.ukma.org.uk to hear their side!)

I am sure that BWMA should post something about now in reference to the widespread use of imperial where the law doesn't trap you...
But here is my elaboration of my list:
Miles/Yards/Feet/Inches are use on roads - metric is forbidden except for height and width restrictions where it can be supplementary. Strangely some authorities keep erecting metric signs (which get replaced usually when one complains).
I was taught in the 80's and imperial was non-existent at school, we had to rely on "real life" to get the "proper education" if you know what I mean! In the 90's they reintroduced imperial (not in a scientific context, just mathematical).
If you go into shops you'll see imperial everywhere - from 26" TVs , to 9" fans, to weighing scales etc etc. Tesco carried out a survey and found that customers almost entirely thought in imperial - so they brought it back in a big way (including 'pre-packed'). - see www.tesco.com and find "press releases" (I think it's in the corporate section). TV weather forecasters "switched" to celsuis many years ago, but most radio stations refer to C and F. TV weather refers to F when the weather gets hot in the summer. Tyres are inflated in PSI. The trucks in the yard behind me are all in ft/in. "Descriptives" on shopping channels always refer to imperial. Kids'll know their height in ft/in and weight in st/lb. Cars have their economy worked out in mpg (even though the pumps deliver litres). Pint cans (beer/cider) are on there way back. Milk is usually sold in pints. Clothes are entirely imperial. Photo sizes in shops are priced by the inch. land is sold by the acre. Shops and offices are 'let' by the square foot. Warehousing is priced by the sqr foot. (Real) Estate agents size rooms in feet/inches.
The best way to see exactly how "metric" the UK is would be to spend a short holiday (um, vacancy!) here. Come over in May/June - the height of the golden jubilee.

Watched the DVD of "apocalypse now" last night - full of americans referring to "clicks" and "kilometres" - yuk!

Just noticed your reference to the "hand"
Horses here are sized in "hands"

Just thought of a few more:
Football (Soccer) is in yards
Tennis is in feet
Cricket is in yards (and chains)
Golf is in yards.

I'm sure the list is getting long enough now!

Steve, reading your cheering report
on the computer again coincided with the
morning's first cup of coffee. I am
much encouraged by the English example
of resistance.

Thanks for taking the trouble to provide
a firsthand account!

Leonard

Minor correction to your post there Leanard, you should have said "British".

Being Welsh, I'd prefer it that way!

(chuckle)

Correction noted!
I'll try to keep staight on that
in the future.

BTW I sing bass in one of the
local community choruses, or
baritone depending on which section
is short of singers. Do you happen
to do part-singing of any kind (outsiders
have the impression that many Welshmen
can hold their part in the choir)?

No, didn't find my way onto any choir, but I know what you mean about the Welsh signing voice - nice to see it really *IS* world famous.

BTW: I actually live and work around London, but most of the folks live in Wales.

Whenever I hear the Welsh National Anthem being played it always brings a lump to my throat! Search the internet and download the music and you'll hear what I mean!

I found the closing chorus on this web page:

http://websites.ntl.com/~paulware/

Look at the very bottom and click on the flag - shame it's not the full rendition though.

Thank you, I will.
Or rather, since my computer currently cannot
deal with mp3 music files for some
reason, my wife
(she is the one in our family who
has the new fast computer!)
will download it for us to listen to.
She has been
getting quite a bit of mp3 music off
the web lately.

Steve H counting sheep:
"one, two, three, four, hello!, six, seven...

In so far as we cooperate we are all to that extent like sheep because we voluntarily follow each others' leads and in so far as we are always at cross-purposes we are to that extent fractious Donkins (thinking of an unproductive member of the crew on Joseph Conrad's ship the Narcissus.)

Anyway I could sure use your help. I've constructed a modern version of pound-inch units defined in a way that makes them suitable for college physics texts and coursework. I would like it if we could post a book consisting of simple physics problems made up by participants on the BWMA battleboards collected using the bulletin-board mechanism and available to all interested young people who want to try working physics examples in pound-inch.

Please contribute. There is an obvious forum or two where you can post them. The ground rules are to use ONLY THE BASE UNITS. Only inches, pound mass, pound force, inchpound for energy, rankine degree. NO specially named multiples of these. No feet, no yards.
Volume, for example, always in cubic inches. The reason is that it takes a lot of concentration and practice for students simply to get used to the full set of BASE units. Anything submitted may get edited very freely. Steal from old textbooks if you want, we can always change the wording and numbers--textbook writers have been borrowing each others' homework exercises for generations.

Expanded discussion of this system is at
www.planck.com/poundinch.htm

The sizes of the units are right on traditional, but
the definition-style is modern. Slightly ahead of metric for the present.

To the uninitiated:

Bob C's post (counting sheep) refers to a common "anti-welsh" insult that some English people use (again and again and again - etc).

Luckily us Welsh have an excellent sence of humour (and are not with the PC brigage) so we just laugh it off.

After all, there are a lot of cows in England!