Metric - I feel such a fool!

Don't feel foolish, MamaCaz, I have tried explaining how many different bases we had to be able to work in to do money calculations (240 pence in a pound, 20 shillings etc), weights and measures to my grandson - he was impressed!

gilld69, me too!

I can't understand why it has taken you all this time to measure correctly, it is nearly 50 years since we went metric on which planet have you been living?

I very recently discovered that the mile I have been struggling to get to in my swimming, I have actually achieved for months, since I always swim 1600 metres, more or less, when I was striving for 2000 metres which, I now discover, is a sea-mile, which I can’t yet manage in the hour I allow myself in the baths.

youve taught me something new

I remember my mother roughly measuring a yard by holding the piece of cloth to her nose and stretching out her hand as far as she could !
I convert centigrade into farenheit by doubling the number and adding thirty e.g. 10C x 2 = 20 + 30 = 50F. It's not exactly spot on but it gives me a general idea of how warm it is.

CaroleAnne that made me smile, but I can see how things get embedded and it's so difficult to reverse your thinking isn't it!
(So when you stood on a beach and looked into the far distance where the sea and sky met, did you call that the 'vertic'?)

I hate the metric system too and still work in inches and lbs and oz as that is how we were taught in the 50s and 60s. But I manage to cope with most weights and measures except for distance. The meaning of kilometres escapes me completely. And I’m never sure if a mile is longer or shorter than a kilometre, ?

One of the more bizarre things I learnt as a child is that a Pint of Water weighs a pound and a quarter. I’m not sure that has ever been useful in the last 60+ years.

I have sort of refused to accept the Metric system. I know exactly where I am in inches, feet, yards etc. I cannot visualise a metre. I do know what a yard looks like (and yes, I know there isn't much difference but three yards I am fine with, three metres is a different ball game.) Same with weights.

I know my weight in stones and pounds. Kilos mean absolutely nothing to me.

Yes, I prefer working with imperial measurements but no one taught me metric (my O Level Maths qualification was pre-decimalisation) and it's a bit like a foreign language to me. I'll muddle through, but I'll never speak it fluently.

You may not believe this but until I married my husband (who put me right) I always thought that vertical was flat and horizontal was upright. Not one math teacher put me right at school. I was educated at a grammer school too!! To this day I have to think carefully as it is
etched on my brain.

I don't like metric, and have never understood it. If I need to, I ask Mr Google to convert for me.

30cm = 11.811 inches which to me is as near as dammit. If you did O levels as I did then cms didn't enter into it. If you are worried then I think the secret is when using a pattern for example to follow its instructions and check the measurements with a tape measure to be the same as in the pattern. The same with recipes you either work all in metric or imperial following what the recipe says and do not try to combine the two systems as they are not exactly the same.

P.s. I understand temperature better in C. Than F.

I started my nurse training in 1964 and we used litres and Kg etc as measurements. Very go ahead hospital. Babies were weighed in kg but immediately parents would say “What is that in real ‘money’.” I retired in 2007 and they were still asking the same question. Mainly because they wanted to compare the babies birth weight with their own and past generations and when they got home after clinic others would ask. These are parents who would not have learnt lbs and oz at school and would have no idea how to do sums in lbs and oz. We put a conversion chart on the wall as we got fed up with doing the conversion for them

I have no problem with metric but I will put in £20 of petrol or fill it up my car as I don’t know how many litres are needed. Cooking I use 30 grams to the oz but it is about 28 grams. I will ask for ham, bacon or meat etc in grams but then might ask for a bit more but I think we always did that. I measure in metric.

When I think of the complicated sums we did with £.S.P, lbs and oz and feet and inches no wonder we know how to do mental arithmetic.

After years of teaching metric I found myself looking for the words to “The Ten Days of Christmas “! ? and it took a while for the new penny to drop.
Nowadays I am a mongrel when it comes to measuring. I do measure my knitting in centimetres and the temperature in degrees C but I still prefer pints, stones and pounds.

My only measurement guide - a metre measures 3ft 3, it's longer than a yard you see! Kilometres to miles is guesswork

BradfordLass72

I still try to ignore kilograms and litres. I think I am with you Urmstongram.

Have to admit, I much prefer working in imperial, sewing, knitting, cooking etc all done in the old weights and measures. But, I was watching a YouTube video recently on the subject of sewing with jersey fabric; the presenter/seamstress said " turn the waistband casing 1cm and then 1 inch" ! Talk about confusing!!!!!

I have a weird disconnect between metric and imperial measurements. I would only know how heavy or light a baby was if it was given to me in pounds and ounces - yet for the temperature I always use centigrade to the extent that Fahrenheit doesn’t register with me any more!

At least you were not too embarrassed to make a post of it !! Good for you.

Fortunately, I don't have that problem, I know the distance from my home to the supermarket is 11 kilos.

Mama

Metric weights bring out my awkward side - I can't use them here in England, but have no problem at all with them when in France or Spain (well, except the time when there was a misunderstanding between me and a Spanish shop assistant that resulted in her filling several carrier bags with mushrooms, 4 kilos of them to be exact, when I only wanted a quarter of a kilo! )
Could have been worse though. I know someone who had a similar misunderstanding in French, except she was buying minced beef, and the penny didn't drop until the butcher had nearly finished feeding a huge amount of steak through the mincer.

I don't do metric.

Well, you're not very far out MamaCaz!

Re weight...I've got lots of old recipes in lbs and oz and when I'm shopping find that 4ozs (or quarter of a pound) = roughly 100 grams very useful.