Feet and inches!!!

Rods, poles, perches, chains, furlongs? Drachms, gills? Pecks, bushels?

Horses still race in furlongs - perhaps no-one has sent them on a metric course.

and - we eat a peck of dirt before we die!

Suppose there is a difference- between personal use, and business/industry. Whatever happens to the 'B' word- we will still be in a multinational supply chain- so it is not possible to all have different measures. If we want to export to Europe and most other countries we have to do so in Metric. The cost of constantly adjusting machines, etc, to both systems- would be massively prohibitive and damage our industries even more than the 'B' word.

But if we want to trade with America they aren’t on the metric scale ?

ah yes, chlorine gallons ;) - and different gallons to ours too.

we want to Trade with America as well as all the other countries, most of them work in metric.

Many people say they can't get their head around metric- but I find that hard to believe. I mean it has been ...nearly 50 years.

An American pint is different to a British pint.

A cricket pitch is still one chain (22 yards) by 10 feet.

Does anyone else remember school exercise books that had all the measurement tables printed on the back outside cover? Even back in the 60's some of them were a mystery to me!

I function on both systems to greater or lesser degrees. I struggle most with body temperature, probably because I have little cause to measure it now my children are grown. I'm also not very good with kilometres v miles e.g. I can imagine 100 miles but not 100 kilometres, for some reason.

I tend to use feet and inches and if anything is in cms I convert it into feet and inches. I must admit I always use lbs and oz. I've never found it necessary to do otherwise. Occasionally, I do find myself adding 10ps in 2/-.

The difference for Evianners is that, having lived in Europe for so long, she will have not had any dealings at all with Imperial weights and measures. In the UK we are exposed to both. Cars dials have miles and kms, tape measures have both too and we can change our personal weighing scales to kgs, st and lb or just lbs. In Europe everything is just in metric with no choice.
I must admit living abroad I use both but if going on a journey I still convert kms to miles to see how far it is. When I start it's 160km to Porto so its 100 miles and when it's down to 72km its ÷ by 8 and x 5 so 45 miles. But when returning ro England one should accept that not everything is going to be metric.

Bluebelle America may not use metric but they buy cars and machinery from around the world which are metric.

I totally understand that Daisybootsjust mentioning that not all (although most) deal in metric Surely we do deal in metric just a lot of people our age use both or still struggle If you are younger and brought up with metric in school you won’t think in ft and inches although you ll drink a pint in the pub ? just part of uK s quirkiness I suppose
But it been like this for (is it) 30 years so probably won’t fully change on a daily basis till we ve all gone

I think younger people do still use some imperial. My Dd tells me my baby GD's 'vital statistics' in pounds and ounces or in feet and inches.

if going on a journey I still convert kms to miles to see how far it is.
I smiled when I read this - when driving in Australia we tend to say "it's two hours to wherever" (or 24 hours!) and have no idea, really, of the actual distance which is in kilometres.

When I was younger I worked as a lab technician and was completely used to measuring in grammes, litres, centimetres and metres. However in the kitchen I still use pounds, ounces, pints and inches. If I have a more modern recipe I convert it to imperial. I even convert to imperial in the shops at times. My weighing scales at home have imperial weights and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I am proud that we are using all of our measures. If you're coming back - get used to it. I assume you got used to metric 44 years ago!

On the subject of distance, a friend used to measure journeys not in distance or time but in gallons of fuel! You'd ask her how far it was to XYZ and she's say 'Oh, it's about two gallons.' Bizarre!

Those of us who learned imperial measures in school obviously quite naturally calculate in those but are mostly capable of using metric too. It's a bit like being bi-lingual I suppose. My weighing scales, measuring jugs and tape measures have both so I have no real problem (except maybe for baby weights of DGC!)

In Australia the money and the measurements changed to metric in 1966. It was a very smooth transition - the Government had a very thorough and rather humorous education programme - so everyone knew about it for months before it happened. I can't imagine using Imperial again - so fiddly compared to the straightforward metric system.

You are coming back here in all this Brexit muddle? I'm amazed that you want to!

I've never really got used to meters and still use inches and feet to measure things. But I seem to be fine with kilos and litres. The UK never adopted the Euro either.

We have a French lady staying who says she would be terrified to drive on the left.
We, on the other hand get used to changing to the wrong side when we drive in Europe.
I say the wrong side because they all began our way but later changed. It was to do with driving horses and having your right hand free - I think.

American recipes use cups which are slightly smaller than English cups.
If you want to be confused you can be.

I use both, but I do struggle with converting litres consumed per hundred kilometres travelled to miles per gallon.

Maud Lilian : after reading the majority of postings here, we are seriously wondering whether to return. Some of the messages we find bizarre, to put it mildly. Brexit, hmmm yes.

Yes I've never understood the American cup thing Grammaretto there are no standard sized cups are there? I presume it must be a specific measurement but what ?

I have a set of standard sized cups for baking - bought them in TKMaxx, also a similar set of spoon sizes from tablespoon down to half a teaspoon.
They are all very useful.

What I have never quite understood is measuring butter in 'sticks'.
A stick is a piece of wood!