On Sunday 2003 November 30 17:56, john mercer wrote:
> Hello everyone.  I have a couple of questions.  I was on the U K metric
> association web site they said that the measure of weight the Stone is no
> longer legal.  Could someone tell me when it became illegal?  

John:

At the latest it was 1991. In that year the Price Marking Order did not list 
the stone as one of the 'authorised units'. In reality it had disappeared 
before that. I only ever remember the stone being used in weighing potatoes, 
and as the wholesale industry went metric some time before that, the stone 
had already become moribund.

>Another
> question.  When a person goes to the doctor's office in the U K and gets
> weighed do they get weighed in kg's or lbs.  Thanks for the information.

Medical records have used metric for a long time, even for children, despite 
the fact that new-borns are still described in public as so many pounds and 
ounces. Often the patient will be told their weight in stones (and height in 
feet) even though that is not how they are recorded. Interestingly (and 
somewhat annoyingly) when I had a medical at work recently the scales I stood 
on had a digital display with only two options: pounds or kilograms. We never 
describe our weights in pounds here.

Chris


-- 
Chris KEENAN

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