Minor rant that is not Pit worthy (until a bunch of pissed off Brits start attacking me). I just read this article
and I got to wondering: Hey England! WTF is wrong with using the accepted standards of weight measurement?
Sure the US is the oddball in the world by insisting on using pounds and ounces so maybe you don’t want to do that. But England has been using the metric system for ages. They all know what a kilogram is so why do they insist on using some antiquated unit of measure. Do they plan on describing the size of a building in cubits next? How about they start describing the mass of something in terms of mina and talents?
Look, I understand that Shaw was right in many respects
but is it really necessary to confuse matters further? I love your country, think your sense of humor (or as you insist on calling it, “humour”) is hilarious, and your cuisine is… did I mention that I love your country? But come on already! Stick with metric and get rid of your stones (that doesn’t sound right, but you know what I mean).
I shall draw myself up to my full six feet one inch, and walk my fifteen stones the quarter-mile to my local and have a pint later. Unfortunately our quarter-gills no longer exist, so I’ll likely have a couple of 35ml. Cheers!
Perhaps it’s because 10 stones sounds like less than 140 pounds. Another possibility is that the Brits use “pound” with another meaning, as a quality of money, so they will tend to use pound as a unit of weight less if they can help it.
You’d be surprised - I’d guess that most British people wouldn’t know their own weight in kilos (or pounds). In many contexts Imperial units are still the norm. Bodily measuremnts, large distances, fuel consumption (even though petrol is sold by the litre), commercial real estate (still quoted in square feet), lots of things.
Hijack: Which is correct, and which is more common? “I weigh 8 stone” or “I weigh 8 stones”? I’m fairly certain that the second one is grammatically correct, but I don’t recall ever hearing it phrased that way when I was in the UK.
Then again, if I’m recalling correctly, the British English sort of does it’s own thing when it comes to verb/noun pluralizations…
With temperatures Celsius is becoming much more of a norm that it was ten or twenty years ago, but it’s still common for newspapers to use Fahrenheit on the front page when we’re having one of our periodic “heatwaves”. Cold temps are always Celsius though.
How do the kids get it straight in school? Use Celsius when it’s cold but Fahrenheit when it’s hot. Use stone when referring to a person’s weight but kilos when weighing other objects. Square feet for real estate but kilometers on the highway. Buy a pint at the pub and a liter (or litre) at the petrol station.
I realize that presently you cannot use pounds as a unit of measurement because it also refers to currency but, should you ever convert to the Euro (I know, sacrilege) it would become a moot point. Has there ever been a call to standardize everything to one system or create a dual labeling system like they have in Canada?
I don’t know how it’s taught to kids nowadays, but for me back in the 70’s we were taught both temperature scales and I must admit to using them in the way you describe - but that’s personal preference and I can’t really explain it. We were also taught both the imperial and metric measures for weight, height etc. I guess kids only then have to learn which set to use in different circumstances. This doesn’t seem too much of a complication.
Pounds can still used for weight (I think legally), although everything has to be labelled in kilograms. There have been calls for a completely metric system, but I can’t see the remaining popular imperial measurements dissapeaing anytime soon. In particular, converting to kms would be a major hassle and expense for little benefit.
I was a schoolkid in the 70s and I don’t remember being taught about non-metric units, except Fahrenheit which back then was as widely used as Celsius.
But you don’t get taught this kind of thing at school. An 80s kid, I don’t even recall being taught Fahrenheit. Working out how much weight you want to lose in January, or how fast you are over the speed limit, or whatever, are real-life skills relevant to specific situations, and you acquire them as such.
What I’m wondering is what are your home scales like? Are they actually marked off in ‘stone’ or are they marked in pounds and you do the conversion? Or are there both?
How do you mean? We don’t have dual labels on products.