# Why haven't the Brits gone metric? Or Doctor Who? Or Discover magazine?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 13, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025 "2013-01-13T03:17:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/21 "2013-01-14T13:52:09Z")
Also, even if we go completely metric, it will be a few generations before all references to non-metric measures fall out of use because they’re embedded in idiom - I know people who say “It only costs tuppence ha’penny”, who have never seen a half penny coin.
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### Author:  [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/22 "2013-01-14T16:37:07Z")
I can’t prove this, but a mile is a better unit than a kilometer, which is a much wussier distance. And when you’re going 100 mph, you’re shifting, while 100kmh is a wussy speed. Meanwhile, bits of my body, as well as general household items are closer to an inch, foot or a yard than they are a metre or a centimetre.
What it really comes down to is that it isn’t that big a deal one way or the other. There is no reason to change the last bits of imperial measures other than to “conform”, which is not necessarily a positive (as opposed to using metric for screws or whatever where you can really benefit from conformity).
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### Author:  [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/23 "2013-01-14T16:53:28Z")
My index finger is almost exactly 10cm long from the knuckle, but I guess I have a metric body.
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### Author:  [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/24 "2013-01-14T20:15:34Z")
A gallon of water weighs ten pounds. Simples.
Margaret Thatcher’s government abolished the Metrication Board, and most of the impetus towards changing ceased.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2013, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/25 "2013-01-14T20:25:18Z")
> [@Ximenean](#):
>
> My index finger is almost exactly 10cm long from the knuckle, but I guess I have a metric body.
Me too. I have exactly 10 fingers.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/26 "2013-01-14T23:32:54Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#):
>
> A gallon of water weighs ten pounds. Simples.
Which gallon?
> [@Mk\_VII](#):
>
> Margaret Thatcher’s government abolished the Metrication Board, and most of the impetus towards changing ceased.
Same bloodymindedness as the Mulroney government in Canada.
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### Author:  [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/27 "2013-01-15T00:23:27Z")
Why is it bloody mindedness? (I am not going to argue the general case about whether Thatcher was bloody minded or not as that would be stupid)
What is it with a certain type of left winger to want to interfere with things that don’t matter. This is where (small c) conservative tendencies to want nothing to change actually serve teh overall good. Stop tinkering, leave things good enough, and go find another battle. The UK is metric where it matters.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-the-brits-gone-metric-or-doctor-who-or-discover-magazine/647025/28 "2013-01-15T02:36:48Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I know people who say “It only costs tuppence ha’penny”, who have never seen a half penny coin.
Or a penny that was worth enough to have smaller denominations, too.
> [@Nava](#):
>
> The SI is not French, different countries proposed different units to be adopted.
The metric system was first devised in Revolutionary France. SI is short for _Le Système international d’unités_ which, near as I can tell, is French. The prototype meters and kilograms did not leave French control until the Treaty of the Metre in 1875. French, French, and French.
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#):
>
> It has nothing whatsoever to do with the French provenance, whether it did a hundred years ago I’ve no idea.
It’s easy to find 19th-century objections to its Frenchiness and the [UK Metric Association](http://ukma.org.uk/objections-to-metrication#metric-is-foreign) feels a need to address it on its website today.
> [@](#):
>
> And by the way the last French king died in 1850, and Napoleon III, the last monarch, died more than twenty years after…
Well, he was thrown out of power in 1848, actually, and Napoleon III was Bony’s nephew, not a Bourbon, which would not have improved him in the eyes of the British. And that’s a different thread. But the metric system was created by the same mob of commoners who had the effrontery to kill a rightful king a couple years later. And were French. Bad form all around.
Note: I personally have no objections to the brave and noble French, especially those who had the good sense to follow our lead and cast off the irons of monarchy, if only for a short time. And Bonaparte practically gave us most of our country to pay for his perfectly sensible war with you guys. I know why we haven’t gone metric yet (“It’s good to be the king,” quoting Louis XVI), but this thread asks why the UK has not gone metric, despite its obvious advantages.
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