Who prefers traditional units?

[Rod]

In uk.d-i-y we have seen numerous discussions about ?the metric system?, the pros and cons - how some prefer the fact that the 12 inches in a foot can be divided into 2, 3, 4 or 6. That multiplying by 10 is easy. And so on.

I have tended to sit on the sidelines. But today my partner passed a booklet to me discussing some of the measures used in the textile industry in the past in terms of conversion to the tex. Not sure when it was printed but the latest date I can find within is 1962. Its sheer complexity makes it incredible that the units discussed were in regular use.

It has introduced me to measures such as:

The Galashiels Cut The Yorkshire Skeins Woollen lbs. per 14,400 yd drams per 40 yd.

The fact that asbestos yarn was measured in 50 yd. per lb.

That 1/36 worsted = 24.6 tex and 2/24s worsted = R74 tex/2.

And I finally found out that denier is grammes per 9,000 metres. But not for tights where it is a density of weave.

Metres rule. (And seconds, kelvins and so on.)

[Frank Erskine]

On Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:25:34 +0000, Rod had this to say:

[Bob Eager]

[Rod]

What we have is the worst of all worlds. E.g coffee in 227 gr (half pound) packs. Except for the real 'foreign' coffees such as Lavazza which are a real 250 gr. Makes price comparison so much fun...

But I suppose this perpetuates the manipulation shown when Chivers Jam was sold in jars cunningly designed to look like pound jars but only containing 12 oz.

[Harry Bloomfield]

So why, despite decimalisation - do we still have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day?

[Frank Erskine]

On Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:59:24 GMT, Harry Bloomfield had this to say:

Harry - that's it in a nutshell. In Real Life things don't always work out in nice neat bundles of 10s :-)

Having to use your brain to do calculations is really not too difficult - a lot of us (even those who weren't particularly mathematically-minded) managed 11+ 'arithmetic' reasonably well.

Most of these special units had good pragmatic reasons. Once upon a time I worked for the GPO (the telephone bit). Wire gauges were traditionally referred to by 'lb/mile'. The origin of this went back to open wire (bare conductors) of copper or cadmium/copper. By far the easiest way of finding how much wire you had on a reel of the stuff was to weigh it, assuming you could see the 'preferred-value' thickness (40 lb or 70 lb). You (or the storekeeper) simply weighed the reel and could then calculate the length to see if you had enough for a particular 'span'. When dealing with insulated wires (usually internal) the system became, I suppose, less valid, but nevertheless lasted for many years. As it happens, 6¼ lb/mile wire was almost identical to what became known as 0·5mm or 25 (or was it 26?) SWG. Or was that AWG? :-)

It's all this 'standardisation' that's CAUSING confusion...

73 -

[Dave]

Then learn how to easily convert. That is what I had to do in 1978 when I joined a metric engineer.

Dave

[Dave]

The Romans were too stupid to work it out and the French were even worse ;-)

Dave

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ahh..well that started fro9m te fact that tere are 365 days in a year..and became 360 degrees in a cirle..nice number..easily divisible..

Then bvously you divied teh day into night and day, which is a factor of two, and forenoon and afternoon, which means you have four periods..

From there on it probably seemed rational to split that again, and have

8 periods in a day..why that was split three ways again to make hours is anybodies guess. Maybee beacause the duodecimal system is nice and makes for easy division by 2,3,4,6,and 12..

[dave]

To what? And How?

[Stephen Howard]

...and when is spam going to go metric...I've yet to see one that says "Add 50mm to your knob"...

Regards,

[Andy Hall]

Not spam, but the Eurotadger is certainly metric

[nightjar]

"The French System" in some of my books.

Some of the aforementioned books have a much wider choice of measures, includiing foreign non-metric measures from before the French system became prevalent in Europe.

As a child, I learned how to think in multiple base systems without even being aware of the fact. Today's kids only get to think in base 10. I do not think that is an advance.

Colin Bignell

[Stephen Howard]

Well that's put me off me Schnitzengrubers. Think I'll just have a slice of toast...

Regards,

[Andy Hall]

We don't have to have that. The French Revolutionary calendar had each day divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes and each decimal minute had 100 decimal seconds. Thus an hour was more than twice as long as a conventional hour; a minute was slightly longer than a conventional minute; and a second was slightly shorter than a conventional second.

There were 10 days to a week (which meant that more work could be done), three weeks to a month and 12 months to a year.

This resulted in 5-6 extra days left over at the end of each year.

OTOH, our present calendar has to use leap years with correcting rules to approximate nature.

I like the month names. Currently we are in Ventose which is topically appropriate.

[Rod]

Umm, I don't think that I need to learn how to convert. My very earliest memories of weights and measures, from well before 1978, included a mixture of litres, pints and US quarts. (And English, German and French labelling.) And I have used many such ever since.

The standardisation of packaging for items such as flour and sugar was imposed a very long time ago. I really can't see any reason for this not to apply to many other products.

If *everyone* who wishes to buy coffee has to manipulate prices/package sizes in order to gauge 'value' that adds an unnecessary burden to those who for any reason cannot quickly convert.

Interesting that for many products the manufacturers have standardised packages to the extent of being able to send the goods to Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden or pretty much anywhere else in Europe without incurring problems of packaging or language. But where they see the possibility of a more lucrative edge they adjust package sizes.

[Frank Erskine]

On Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:57:15 +0000, Rod had this to say:

Why are you trying to compare prices of different substances?

It's fair enough comparing identical stuff...

[Lino expert]

[The Natural Philosopher]

nightjar

Todays kids cannot think at all.

[Mary Fisher]

Surely you buy the coffee you prefer - on flavour not price?

Mary