Does Brexit mean we can have our yards back?

[rmurphy195]

When canal tunnels were built, for example, they were built in yards, feet and inches - but the signs above them nowadays say metres!

Can we have our feet back please - and our miles, I can understand miles!

[reohn2]

You can understand metres if you stop thinking in miles
Similarly so,kgs,litres,

[Paulatic]

No you can't. I wouldn't revert back. When I built a house I quickly learned to love millimetres.
Though I think I'll carry on using the mismatch I do at the moment as I still Estimate land size in acres. Doesn't matter how many times I've divided by 2.4 I still can't visualise a hectare.

[PH]

When canal tunnels were built, for example, they were built in yards, feet and inches - but the signs above them nowadays say metres!

Can we have our feet back please - and our miles, I can understand miles!

I don't think it was the EU who took them away, not that miles have been taken anywhere. We might be able to buy our veg by the lb, but most people seem not to understand either and buy by the packet.

[Graham]

No, please don't return to the complete absurdity in counting in mixed number bases :-

12 pennies in a shilling
20 shillings in a pound

16 ounces in a pound
14 pounds in a stone

x yards in a furlong
z furlongs in a mile.

Talk about making life difficult for yourself ( and everyone else ) !

All the metric measures count in Base 10 ( or multiples thereof ). A bit too rational for some maybe.

[Tangled Metal]

Jeez grandad! You really want to go back to base 12 or base 14 imperial measurements. Totally useless for a modern world, a world of science based on the metric system. Do you really want to be like America that much? Who else around the world uses imperial? Scientists have universally switched to metric, time for non-scientists to follow, it makes sense.

If Brexit means we go back to pound and ounces then I'll rebel and keep asking for grams and kilograms.

Of course I'm still using miles, mph, mpg and 568ml of warm 'n weak beer.

[bovlomov]

If Brexit means we go back to pound and ounces then I'll rebel and keep asking for grams and kilograms..

'Metric Martyr' will acquire the opposite meaning.

[gaz]

Succumbing to post Brexit inflationary pressures I hear Poundland is going to rebrand as Guinealand.

[al_yrpal]

They never went away, all sorts of things, are still sold in imperial - plasterboard, plywood, chipboard, a lot of wood , paper and art supplies. Personally I don't mind as I have understood and used both since the mid 1960s. Our butcher responds to lbs as do market traders. Even my Japanese car has a read out of estimated mpg!

Al

[hamish]

My kids complain that we still use miles. I agree and would like us to move to using Km. It makes more sense to me and works better with OS maps. My only concern would be the waste of money and aluminium in changing road signs over!

[meic]

The old units were a bit complex to be sure. However teaching them at a young age helped create an ability to work with different bases and improve mental mathematical agility.

[wahoofish]

Wagons pulled by oxen used to work well as long as kids learned to drive them early. The world has now moved on


I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly bog brush using hovercraft full of eels

[meic]

Yes but we still feel the need to teach bases and mental mathematical ability for their own sake.
It was somewhat easier when they had a clear, concrete use (and pupils taught themselves outside of school ).

[freeflow]

I regularly think in base 2, 10 or 16 depending on which type of problem I'm trying to solve. No need to go backwards to have mental agility.

[meic]

No need to go backwards. Yet sixty years ago everybody thought in all those bases plus 14.
Now it is the exclusive realm of computer machine codists.