There was an interesting programme on the radio a little while back on this subject, where they were talking to market traders. It was just after the EU ruling that someone else mentioned, where they have actually backpedalled and now it's OK again to sell in pounds so long as both per pound and per kg prices are shown. Surprisingly (as the public perception is that the street traders are at the front of wanting to keep imperial), most of them want to complete the change to metric as at the moment they are having to work a dual system.
I don't understand why so many people are against the change when the maths is so much easier in metric, and when our children have been taught mostly in metric since the 1970s (and then we complain if they seem a bit thick at imperial problems). If we just did it, we would save a lot of time and double labelling. I wonder how long the people who, when we changed to decimal currency in 1971, swore that they were never going to use it and were always going to convert everything back to pounds, shillings and pence, actually went on doing it. I still do occasionally out of interest such as today when I saw a "special offer" on Cadbury's cream eggs of "2 for 85p" and worked out that they are now (on offer) eight shillings and sixpence each. I think they were sixpence, maybe ninepence, in 1971. What I did find interesting though was that when the presenter queried the logic of 16 ounces to the pound, the pro-imperial expert explained that it was actually very sensible, because if you have a pound of something it is easy to divide it into ounces without scales by halving, halving, halving, and halving again. I could see a few flaws in his argument such as if you have scales to weigh the pound in the first place, it would be easier to concoct an ounce weight to use for an ounce than having to weigh out a pound and put 15 ounces (approximately) back. Or, if you haven't got scales at all, how do you get the pound. But the main thing that struck me immediately is if that is really the reason for 16 ounces, why are there 14, not 16, pounds in a stone. Halve the stone and divide the rest into seven? I don't think so. Does anyone know the answer to this one. Jacquie in Lincolnshire. To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected].
