Dear Jerry,
Remember that there are now only five instances that the public in the
UK legally use old pre-metric names for their measuring. As a
reminder, they are:
i pints for returnable containers for beer (and milk although
returnable milk bottles are now rarely used)
ii mile, yard, feet, and inches are only for road signs; the roads,
and everything else in the UK, are built using metric units such as
millimetres and metres
iii foot is legal for use in aircraft even though the global
positioning systems uses metres that have to be converted to feet
iv the nautical mile, which is the metric nautical mile is defined as
exactly 1852 metres
v this troy ounce is the metric troy ounce defined as 31.1034768 grams
Firstly, notice that these five measures are relatively common
especially the first two, beer and road signs. These two legal
measures can give some members of the public the illusion that the UK
has not 'gone metric' yet. You could think of this as going on an
excursion with small children. Whatever you say to answer the
question, 'Are we there yet? will prove to be unsatisfactory.
Secondly, notice by default that almost all legal measurements in the
UK use metric units without any requirement for conversions.
Thirdly, notice that all of the above measuring words (in points i to
v) are no longer 'Imperial' measures as they are now all defined using
metric standards.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Geelong, Australia
On 2009/01/31, at 2:09 PM, Jeremiah MacGregor wrote:
Mike,
That is so interesting how everyone who visits the UK would have a
different metric experience.
If the homes in the UK are built in metric, then I would expect the
metric numbers to be user friendly. Yet in Martin's web link it
looked like the feet & inches were more user friendly then the
metric in the brackets. This leads to the question as to what units
are used to build the homes in the UK and if attention is placed on
making what series of numbers the most user friendly.
If a UK building is fully metric, then how would the dimensions of
the rooms work out so rounded in feet and inches and so much the
opposite in metric?
Jerry
From: Michael Payne <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 1:14:33 PM
Subject: [USMA:42548] Re: Small item seen on TV
Many of the people that I know in the UK are world travelers like
me, what does impress me is when one of them built another house and
all the plans were in meters and that's what he talked about. Now if
someone is going to tell me directions to a town or house, they
might phrase it in miles because that is what the odometer displays.
But from my experience, it's metric. Perhaps it's the circle of
people you move in that defines the units you use?
Mike Payne
----- Original Message -----
From: Stephen Humphreys
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Sunday, 25 January 2009 18:03
Subject: [USMA:42544] Re: Small item seen on TV
Lol - Martin got his km figures from markers on the side of the
motorway! (I will let him explain)
I wholly disagree that people do 'speak metric', from 40 years
experience.
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:55:13 -0800
From: [email protected]
Subject: [USMA:42540] Re: Small item seen on TV
To: [email protected]
Mike,
From your description I would understand it to be that metric is
used everywhere but on road signs. But road signs must be both if
Martin said he was 55.7 km from London or did he just do a conversion?
So people do speak in metric and don't really need to have things
dumbed down as some one put it earlier.
Your comments about pilots in the US explains why the last time I
flew in a plane, the pilot hesitated before saying the temperature.
He must have been trying to translate it from what was on his screen.
Jerry
From: Michael Payne <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 12:29:23 PM
Subject: [USMA:42533] Re: Small item seen on TV
I visit the UK perhaps 6-10 times a year, the people that I know in
the UK tend to talk in meters/metres when referring to a new house
size, etc. If you go into a UK hardware store it's almost all
metric, supermarkets have gram scales, prices might be marked as
pence/pound but normally pence/gram, it's weighed in grams. Fuel is
sold in liters, road signs are all in miles and miles per hour but
all road work is done in meters. In general it seems like a big mess
which is why here in the US we need to do it differently, Australian/
New Zealand and South Africa did a very good transition in the 60's
and 70's. Most young people in those countries don't know non metric
units.
I'm a pilot, when I fly into the UK the atmospheric pressure is in
hPa, the visibility is in meters, the runway length is in meters/
feet. Temperature is Celsius, it's also Celsius for all pilots in
the US. Call 703 661 2990 here in the US to listen to the weather
pilots get at my local airport.
Mike Payne
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeremiah MacGregor
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Sunday, 25 January 2009 17:16
Subject: [USMA:42529] Re: Small item seen on TV
When you say the UK is bi, do you mean they use both metric and
English equally,? 50 % ? Or is there more of a leaning towards one
or the other? How are both use equally without causing confusion?
Say for instance in the medical field. Would a doctor speak metric
and a nurse respond in English? It must make for some strange
communications..
Jerry
From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 11:40:08 AM
Subject: [USMA:42515] Re: Small item seen on TV
Because the UK is not metric (it's 'bi') and in the case of tyre
pressures there are not laws forcing the use of metric.
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:00:18 -0800
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [USMA:42494] Re: Small item seen on TV
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Stephen,
I interpreted the statement to mean that bar and kPa were the most
common. It doesn't mean the is no psi, it just means it isn't very
common. If the UK is metric then why would psi dominate and not kPa?
Jerry
From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 10:27:02 AM
Subject: [USMA:42494] Re: Small item seen on TV
Except in the UK (which is part of Europe) where PSI dominates.
Maybe you meant "Mainland Europe"
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [USMA:42439] Re: Small item seen on TV
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:22:34 +0000
The most common units of measure for tyre pressures in Europe are
bars or kPa. (100 kPa = 1 bar).
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Jeremiah MacGregor
Sent: 24 January 2009 14:59
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:42430] Re: Small item seen on TV
Harry,
Aren't they suppose to be in pascals or something along that line?
Jerry
From: Harry Wyeth <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:39:58 PM
Subject: [USMA:42388] Small item seen on TV
A minor point of interest: on PBS's US broadcast of the BBC World
News tonight, in a piece re the resumption of natural gas to
Europe, there was "footage" showing close-ups of presssure gauges
on pipeline fixtures out in the snowy fields. One showed pressure
in kg/cm2, and the other in "bar".
HARRY WYETH
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Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
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and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
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