Yep, us Brits have always found multiplying by powers of 10 very difficult ever since metric system was adopted in engineering in 1965. Inches, feet, yards, chains and furlongs were so easy.
But actually for everyday use there is something more natural and intuitive about many imperial units that grew out of usage... Humans like to use numbers between 1 and 10 for obvious reasons (we have 10 digits visible and know full well the value of each) We understand naturally the 3 ness of 3.. So units that fit in with that are more accepted. Feet for height. Gallons for fuel, pints for milk... Natural, intuitive. They have there place. Who wants to be 185cm tall. 6 feet is much better. SI and metric might be better for calculations but there is a place for natuallly developed units. Not seeing that is part of problem.
Being dictated to about which units we should use is pretentious and is part of problem with EU. Well spotted Danidl.
Our use of units was spectacularly complicated.
How many pounds in a stone? Well, umm, that depends. 14 for standard human weight. 15 for some purposes related to wool. Just checked because I know there are other multiples - Wiki claims 4 to 26 - which is slightly wider range than I remember.
What drill bit is just smaller than 1/2"? 1/4? 3/8? 7/16? 15/32? 31/64? And if that is slightly too big, what is the next step?
One of the most difficult was apothecaries measures. Pound, Ounce, Dram, Scruple, Grain. And as a grain is almost 65 milligrams, it is far too large a unit for many medicines! (Which means use of fractions or decimals...) And a whole set of special characters to go along with the measurements. And complex rules for writing amounts.
(We still see the fallout of haphazard conversions. With things like aspirin in 300 and 325 milligrams dosages depending whether they used the simplified or more accurate way of converting five grains.)
www.theguardian.com
