Why did the British invent the imperial system and then abandon it?
In: Economics
Trade dictates standard measurements to enable you to set quantities and prices. So “Imperial” simply standardised various measure e.g. there are 4 types of ton. A gallon weighed 10lbs, 160 oz and 20oz for a pint. Weights and measures, as the metric system originally was, were calculated from water, its weight and its volume, standard manufacturing sizes e.g. barrels.
In 1965 the UK adopted the meteic system as this fitted in trade, by far the largest, with Europe E.g. a standard building timber, a four by two, just didn’t exist, carpet, textiles in metres not yards.
Some measures resolutely stick like the pint, in pubs, and miles per gallon despite petrol being sold in litres for over 40 years.
Something that has met resolute resistance is show sizes (Germany has the same sizes as they also have the same billion, a million million but now generally adopted the US thousand million) . Standard hoe sizes arose when a cobbler made boots for a king which didn’t fit. A baby’s foot was the base and measured in barleycorns (3 to the inch). Each shoe size increase is one barleycorn. The US size is one size larger than the UK (and Germany) as the early settler babies were smaller than UK ones.
The UK still persists for some in olde worlde terms, your own weight in stones (14lbs) and pounds instead of kg, ounces for small quantities instead of gms, pint instead of millilitres/litres. Yards instead of metres and worst of all miles instead of kilometres.
there is an age band…some older resolutely stick to old measurements whilst younger have no idea what the older are taking about, 100 yards how far is that. And the especially dimwitted section of society that want Imperial reintroducing so as to avoid them having to learn, despite 60 years later, something new. 16 ounces to a pound, 14 pounds to a stone 20 fluid ounces to a pint,…and don’t get me on to distances and areas!
UK went metric with money in 1971 which was seamless. The old won’t understand it…bollox. The old were the generatiin that. Ould do lightning calculations in their head so metric was a doddle. Old money 12 pennies to a shilling, two shillings to a florin, two shillings and six pence to a half crown, 20 shillings or 10 florins or 8 half crowns or 240 pennies to a pound, unless it was a Guinea which was 21 shillings. 100 pence to a pound. Simples.
Latest Answers