Posted on 09/17/2021 10:04:59 AM PDT by billorites
The British government has announced that U.K. businesses will once again be allowed to sell their products in traditional, British units of measurement, like pounds and ounces, instead of the metric system.
This move is a win for freedom-loving people everywhere, and the restoration of customary units should be a cause for jubilation in the streets.
The metric system has its origins in the French Revolution, as a way to stick it to the Ancien Régime. It didn’t go international until 1875, when a group of diplomats got together in Paris (which, historically, is a pretty good indicator that a bad decision is on the way) and signed the Treaty of the Meter. That treaty established the BIPM, an intergovernmental organization with a French name, to oversee a new, worldwide measurement system.
Just like that, with the strokes of a few pens, centuries of history began to be erased. The French Revolution may have been over, but the mindset of the revolutionaries lived on. The French Revolution was a time when men were, in the words of Edmund Burke, “pull[ing] down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in an hundred years.” The top-down imposition of the metric system did just that by erasing customary units.
By “customary units,” I don’t just mean the U.S. customary system, but any unit of measure derived through custom. If you read about the origins of customary units, you’ll find that many of them are based on specific occupations, like brewing, farming, and surveying. They were invented by people doing their jobs who needed a way to measure things. They developed units of measure that were useful to them and persuaded others to adopt them for ease of commerce. Customary units eventually became standardized through a bottom-up process.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Something interesting I read years ago.
The British FN-FAL rifle and the Argentine FN-FAL rifle are different due to the Metric System. One magazine won’t fit another rifle due to the metric difference.
Agreed. But other than that, what else?
About that time, Bob Greene, a Chicago newspaper columnist started an organization called We Ain't Metric, whose mission statement was, "why won't we use the metric system? because we don't like it. Why won't we comply with government efforts to get us to use it? Because we don't want to."
“My favorite unit is the thou. One thousandth of an inch. A hybrid of metric and English.”
How’s that a hybrid?
And there’s the “tenth” meaning 1/10000 inch to a machinist.
“It’s ‘Celsius’ scale now..”
“Centigrade” is probably racist.
It was supposed to be: Normal human body temperature is 100, and the freezing point of the sea zero. The inaccuracies of measuring devices of the time ensured that nothing would be correct.
Fahrenheit scale is still a better temperature measurement for where people are.
That said, the Imperial system is a far more human scale. It uses things almost everyone is familiar with and can relate to. One ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator means NOTHING. And THAT was wrong to begin with anyways!
Yep. Ive got both sets.
Interesting thing happened. I bought an outdoor light from Walmart made in China. The lag bolts holding the lamp to the barn will not fit either metric or Standard wrenches. I had to use a small adjustable wrench to tighten the bolts in.
“Back when I was a kid ~40 years ago, some teachers loved to tell us...”
Your teachers must have been the younger siblings of mine. I heard the same spiel some 60-65 years ago! Thankfully, we’re still waiting. Only deci that I really recall was Desi Arnez!
Our family fished in Canada and I remember the gas being in liters. This was in the early 60’s.
The small minds are the ones that prefer a system based on a false fantastical surmise, which shows no humanity or connection to its origin.
Metric measure: divisible by 1,2,5,10.
Imperial measure: divisible by 1,2,3,4,6,12,16,32...
Which one requires more comprehension and intellect to use correctly again?
Small minds indeed.
Me too!
Pour me a pint!
If they had just followed through in the 1970s, I’d only have to use one set of tools for repairs and keep an imperial set when I’m reconditioning old equipment. The UK has the right idea - imperial where history and culture matter: beer should be served in pints, not 500 ml/ half-liter; metric where measurement actually matters like woodworking, machining, framing, science stuff, etc.
You can take comfort in the fact that the woke people express their weight in kilograms. Of course a kilogram is a measure of mass, not weight, but they won't let a little thing like that stop them.
Well an inch is English, and the metric system is based on powers of 10.
...or auto engine size measured in litres...
Litres, schmitres, there’s no substitute for cubic inches.
The first law of drag racing.
Even through the metric-euro period the British remained idiosyncratic about some things. Body weight was one of them. Tell a Brit they weigh 215 lbs. and they will look at you as if you were speaking Martian. I beg your pardon, I weigh 15 stone 5 (lbs). Never mind kilograms, you’d just get a blank stare. Then they still do hogsheads, gills, short and long tons, quills, yet they were “metric”. FYI, one stone equals fourteen pounds. Figure that out.
Interesting. I've never heard of that measurement. Where I work, we call that a "mil" and that unit is most commonly used in our turbine supervisory instrumentation. (But the interwebs say a "thou" and a "mil" are one and the same.) Now I know that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.