# Bushels and Foot-Poundals: the UK is back on the cutting edge!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [February 24, 2022, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044 "2022-02-24T10:49:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/1 "2022-02-24T10:49:52Z")
Honest to God, you couldn’t make this stuff up. Is it April 1st? Sadly not. (Story available from multiple news sources):
> **[Govt pays for 'ludicrous' study on benefits of reintroducing imperial units...](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/study-imperial-measurements-after-brexit/)**
>
> The Government has commissioned a study into the "economic benefits" of reintroducing imperial units of measurement after Brexit.
You thought Brexit was a dumb as we could get? You’re wrong, wrong, WRONG!
> Dependent on the outcome of the study, metric units of measurement such as centimetres, kilograms and litres could be scrapped.
>
> The investigation will be overseen by the business department, alongside Minister for Brexit opportunities Jacob Rees-Mogg who is tasked with looking at how Britain might benefit from leaving the EU…
>
> … Paul Scully, Conservative Business Minister, said it was “an important step in taking back control” after Brexit.
I think we’re probably going to roll this out across the whole Empire. You know, the one where the sun never sets?
Flint knapping, anyone?
j
(Hard to know where to put this. Mods, please feel free to move.)
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/2 "2022-02-24T11:00:33Z")
We now go live to the floor of the House of Commons;
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5-s-4KPtD8)
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/3 "2022-02-24T11:01:24Z")
What is WRONG with these idiots. It’s becoming unbearable, just when you think they can’t do anything more stupid, financially damaging and internationally embarrassing.
And Who The Hell still votes for these people! (sadly i know the answer to this, it’s my brother and parents)
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/4 "2022-02-24T11:58:20Z")
If most of the UK’s foreign trade is with the US, there might actually be some net benefit. But to get the most for your money, you’d have to go back to using the Queen Ann gallon – none of those newfangled Imperial gallons.
But even with Brexit, it’s unlikely most of the trade is with the US. So yes, this is dumb.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/5 "2022-02-24T12:50:21Z")
> [@dtilque](#):
>
> But to get the most for your money, you’d have to go back to using the Queen Ann gallon – none of those newfangled Imperial gallons.
It’s not a problem: you just have to distinguish between corn gallons, wine gallons (London and Guernsey), ale gallons, Irish gallons, Russian “buckets”, and Chinese buckets, but who doesn’t as a matter of course?
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/6 "2022-02-24T13:41:11Z")
> [@dtilque](#):
>
> If most of the UK’s foreign trade is with the US, there might actually be some net benefit
Heh. Very much the (pint)-glass-half-full view. But as you (and @DPRK ) point out, we can’t even agree on what a pint is.
j
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/7 "2022-02-24T19:32:40Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> It’s not a problem: you just have to distinguish between corn gallons, wine gallons (London and Guernsey), ale gallons, Irish gallons, Russian “buckets”, and Chinese buckets, but who doesn’t as a matter of course?
You’re a real barrel of laughs. Or would be if I could figure out how large a barrel of laughs is. The [Wikipage on barrel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_(unit)) lists a dozen or so different barrel units based on what’s being measured, but not of laughs. However, I think we can definitely rule out the metric beer barrel, which is only 50 liters.
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/8 "2022-02-24T21:05:43Z")
Has anybody suggested they go back to non-decimal coinage yet?
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/9 "2022-02-24T21:09:58Z")
Don’t! - you’ll give them ideas.
(God forbid they should have more ideas.)
j
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### Author:  [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2022, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/10 "2022-02-26T00:59:21Z")
Coinage?
Ah yes! We had that in the olden days before contactless bank cards and waving your smartphone at card reader became a thing.
Sovereigns, guineas…groats. Let us not be confined by the old pounds shillings and pence. The UK has a wonderful numismatist heritage to explore now that we are released from the infernal shackles of those continental popinjays.
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2022, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/11 "2022-02-26T12:03:21Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> It’s not a problem: you just have to distinguish between corn gallons, wine gallons (London and Guernsey), ale gallons, Irish gallons, Russian “buckets”, and Chinese buckets, but who doesn’t as a matter of course?
[Be careful when converting between units (xkcd link).](https://xkcd.com/2585/)
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### Author:  [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/12 "2022-02-27T04:24:24Z")
Thank god SI invented standardized weights and measures.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/13 "2022-02-27T08:41:04Z")
I’ve never entirely got the hang of what system the UK uses. Speeds on motorways are in miles per hour. Beer is served in pints but the pint glasses have mils marked on the side.
What is the official position?
To the extent the UK is metric, when did the changeover occur? In Australia, the changeover was in 1974. No one younger than about their mid 50’s really grew up with Imperial to any substantial extent.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/14 "2022-02-27T11:45:27Z")
There _were_ various relevant EU directives (including for road signs; supposedly new signs in Britain have to at least include metric units)—I looked them up once— and some merchants in the UK did get nailed as a result (and, conversely, the restaurateur who was facing massive fines for selling beer by the litre instead of by the pint got off, though perhaps that was due to politicians making the case go away?). But who knows what will be mandated tomorrow?
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/15 "2022-02-27T12:48:26Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> I’ve never entirely got the hang of what system the UK uses. Speeds on motorways are in miles per hour. Beer is served in pints but the pint glasses have mils marked on the side.
They also weigh people in “stones”, whatever the fuck _those_ are.
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2022, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/16 "2022-02-27T17:31:34Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> I’ve never entirely got the hang of what system the UK uses.
You are forgiven - it’s just a mess.
The logical smooth changeover to metric has been fought against in a rearguard action for decades, mainly by people who think we still have an empire. Most people are bilingual (as it were); metric comes naturally to the young who were taught it, but they have learned to accommodate miles and pints. But many of the old refuse to move on from the inches and ounces of their past.
In the same breath that our government is claiming that Brexit is a bold leap forwards, they are imagining a return to the imperial system. It’s about as British as you can get these days. Maybe it’s a red herring, a sop to their Brexiteer base. But even if it is, as @SanVito points out upthread, we present ourselves as a laughing stock to the world.
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> They also weigh people in “stones”, whatever the fuck _those_ are.
Fourteen pounds - whatever _they_ are. 😉
In the past few months - long predating this latest stupidity, I’ve made a decision to use only metric wherever possible. Me? Sixty nine kilos and one meter seventy five, as you ask. And yes, I am doing it to annoy people.
j
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/17 "2022-02-28T07:31:52Z")
I’m still bilingual, but tend mostly to use metric for exactness. But when it’s just a question of approximating perceptually, then it’s still imperial -“ooh, about a mile/couple of inches”, or whatever As indeed you may occasionally hear in French and German conversational usage.
Besides, the mental arithmetic of converting one to the other keeps the grey cells going, and it isn’t that difficult.
As for stones, wouldn’t you rather weigh fourteen of something than a couple of hundred of something else?
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2022, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/18 "2022-02-28T08:39:13Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#):
>
> I’m still bilingual, but tend mostly to use metric for exactness. But when it’s just a question of approximating perceptually, then it’s still imperial -“ooh, about a mile/couple of inches”,
Same for me, more metric than imperial - I still weigh myself in stones and count distance by miles, but that’s about it - but I did catch myself chatting to a teenage hairwasher at my hair salon the other day, when she asked me how much I was having cut off. ‘Oh, maybe a couple of inches’ - she looked at me like I was talking Chinese.
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2022, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/19 "2022-05-29T14:18:04Z")
Hard to believe it, but:
> **[Imperial measurement review to mark Jubilee](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61621893)**
>
> But Labour MP Angela Eagle calls the review a "pathetic" attempt to "weaponise nostalgia".
As I mused above, I have little doubt that this is just a sop to the current government’s Brexiteer base (and given recent polls, maybe an act of desperation). Hey, we all live in an electronic global village; and if you already have the reputation of being the village idiot, maybe you should be a bit more careful about the things you say.
j
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2022, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushels-and-foot-poundals-the-uk-is-back-on-the-cutting-edge/960044/20 "2022-05-29T22:08:50Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#):
>
> popinjays
I beieve there’s five dandies to a popinjay and a 100 popinjays to a fop, if I’m not mistaken. (or half a wee dram to a bounder, thereabouts)
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