What measurements are not done metrically in the EU?
I understand jewelery is still measured in carats and karats.
Are there other “traditional” measures that are used in various specialized ways?
Time.
Of course how many seconds old are you?
In the UK, despite being metric, speed limits are still posted in MPH. Also distance is also shown as miles.
Oh yeah, i’m 6 foot 3, but I don’t know what that is in centimetres. Strange.
That should be in the neighbourhood of 190 centimetres.
And, apart from that, beer is still served by the pint in the UK and Ireland (and more and more so in Sweden).
In the UK and Ireland people are more likely to refer to their weight in stones* than in kilos.
[sub]*1 stone = 14 pounds[/sub]
In the UK, I’ve found that you can roughly determine a person’s age by how they refer to temperature. If they are around 40 or older, they will use Farenheit, younger ones will use centigrade. Most weather reports will use both.
Aviation the world over uses feet for altitude measurements. In Australia, we still measure birth weight in pounds and ounces and I guess they will in the EU no matter how metric they go. You have to bare in mind that the UK is a bit of a hold out regardi ng metrification. Even their currency is still expressed in pounds.
It is weird driving to Dublin from a Northern county. One minute (near the border) you have so many units of distance to go when all of a sudden, over the border, you have nearly twic e as many left even though you should be closer.v
Is the UK still in the EU? I’d hardly have noticed.
But as for the mainland EU, practically nothing is non-standard/non-metric, including time since seconds have been internationally standardized.
There are, however, remnants of old systems that have turned into metric derivatives. In Germany, people do still refer colloquially to pounds (Pfund), but only as being exactly 500g. But even the “mile” (Meile) at the local horse track is precisely 1600m!
Imperial measure is practically sacrosanct in horse racing, and its difficult to imagine our beloved Grand National ever being run over a trip of 7,242 metres, rather than four and four furlongs.
On the flat, the five English Classics comprise the One Thousand and Two Thousand Guineas (£1,050 and £2,100 respectively, these sums representing the original purse values), the Derby, the Oaks, and The St. Leger. In all of these events the distance is Imperially Linear, the latter measuring 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 132 yards.
The margins of victory in any given race, in ascending order, are a short head, head, neck, a half-length, etc.
The handicapping system still operates in pounds and ounces, and bookmakers prices are a law unto themselves. Some examples are:
11/10, 6/5, 5/4, 11/8, 6/4, 13/8, 7/4, 15/8, 85/40, 9/4, 5/2, 11/4, 100/30.
On Decimalisation Day in February 1971, some valiant layers offered metric prices such as 6/5, 7/5, and 8/5, but Wolverhampton’s Dunstall Park track was not the place to try and make history in this way.
A punter’s life is is difficult enough without having to work out whether 8/5 offers a better return than 13/8, and the experiment was quietly dropped.
I’m not sure about this but I think that the plumbing used on the continent comes in sizes that are derived from inches (e.g., 1/2 in, 3/4 in, etc.). (I base this supposition on my experience doing plumbing in the former Belgian Congo which may not reflect the modern day EU.)
Even in the UK copper tubing is now sold in metric measurments (either 15mm or 22mm) although I notice in the same catalogue sink taps are still sold as either 1/2 or 3/4 inch.Very strange.
No, time in the EU is not measured in metric. The SI unit for time is the second. Period. There are no hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc. If time were measured in metric, people would be giving their age in seconds, scheduling appointments by the second, and so on.
I don’t know this for sure, but I bet they still sell eggs by the dozen in Europe.
Isn’t the offical SI measurment of temperature degrees Kelvin?
This is correct.
However, since I always manage to break two of the eggs in any given dozen, this is an example of organic metrication, so although you are right in your speculation, you couldn’t be more wrong as well.
Captain Amazing, the metric measure of absolute temperature is in Kelvins. There’s no such thing as a degree Kelvin, they’re just Kelvins. The general metric measure of temperature is in degrees Celsius, where the Celsius scale is defined in relation to Kelvins. The Kelvin is considered a basic unit in SI, the Celsius temperature is derived. A change of one Celsius degree or one Kelvin represent the same change.
No, it’s not the EU, but in China the same thing has happened to the marketplace measurement of one jin (500 g).
Point taken about days, months, etc.
But my original thought was that mainland EU countries use metric and/or international standards for just about everything.
Having now repeated all that, I did just remember that television and monitor screens are measured in inches here (German: Zoll). Some American standards have been accepted throughout the world, I suppose. I have no idea about plumbing measurements, though.
At one time, each center of jewelry manufacture or trade had its own definition of the carat. These definitions varied rather widely from place to place. Eventually, everybody standardized on what is called the metric carat, which is 200 milligrams. The US was the first country to adopt the metric carat in 1913.
So you could say the carat is a derivative metric unit.
Hmmmm, most of the ones I thought of first are gone. Tyres and wheel rims are in inches, but given that holds true for for everything from Harleys to Hondas I assume that its a peculiarity of the industry as a whole rather than a local thing.
The thickness of guitar strings is measured in hundedths of an inch, scale length is in inches and string tension is measured in pounds but the big American guitar companies refer to 9’s and 10’s on their web sites, so again…
Hand rolling tobacco, here as in the rest of the EU, is sold in 12.5g multiples, but if you walk in to a shop to buy it you would ask for half an ounce. Ganja, I have never heard of being sold by the gram over here, guess asking drug dealers to go metric is like asking terrorists to “upgrade” to a new version of PGP with a backdoor.
Clothes are still imperial, I’m a 30 inch waist, 32 leg and a 16 inch collar, I have no idea at all if you folks over the pond use metric for this stuff. Shoe sizes I know are different here fron the rest of the EU, I’m a 10 in our sizes but I think that makes me a 40 something in EU terms. I have a feeling that US sizes are closer to EU than good old blighty, but a couple of numbers down for the same size. Don’t know if this is down to imperial vs metric or not.
RE the plumbing thread (boom boom) even if new pipes were metric there would still have to be imperial ones made so that you can fit one new pipe into an old system, just like you need imperial nuts for your Triumph Bonnivle. BTW I think the only people in the world who still talk about displacement of an engine in cubic inches are you tax evading traitors over there (Hey, TheThrill started it!).
I think the building industry may be full of examples, but the only ones I’m sure of are wood working chisels and paint brushes, who’s widths are measured in fractions or multiples of an inch.
Petrol, to most people, is sold by the gallon, though the pumps show both that and litres. The signs outside the garages showing the price are always per litre, but I assume thats just to make it seem cheaper.
Sorry to lower the tone of the thread, but it occurs to me that you never hears guys bragging about having 22.86cm down their pants, you would think they would take any advantage, maybe the math is just too much for them
later
milo