Vierwielen wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 21:39
Having a cuppa wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 22:37
While the formal industries and fields use metric, imperial is still very prevalent in common life. For instance, road signs are in miles, draught beer is sold by the pint, people measure their height in feet and inches, and weight in stones and pounds. Lengths are given in miles and area is reckoned in square feet or acres. Railways operate using miles and furlongs and naval vessels use knots and fathoms. What was just listed was only a handful of common uses for imperial, but the United Kingdom isn't mostly metric, instead we use both metric and imperial when it suits us. As I stated in my previous post, I don't intend to reignite the measurement wars between SABRE members.
You do not seem to have kept up with things.
Many road signs might be in miles [and yards, feet and inches], but in many cases "200 yards" really means "200 metres". Also metric units are mandatory on new height, width and length warning and prohibition signs and driver location signs are entirely metric.
Draught beer might be sold by the pint, but it is usually delivered in 50 litre kegs.
People might measure their height in feet and inches and weight in stones and pounds, but doctor's surgeries use centimetres and kilograms respectively - see [url
https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/sites/defa ... 10-001.pdf]here[/url].
Estate agents might use square feet and/or acres but the land registry uses hectares while house energy performance certificats (required when selling a house) are in square metres.
Existing railway lines use miles and furlongs, but new railway lines such as the
Channel Tunnel line,
HS2 and the new
Edinburgh - Tweedbank Railway use kilometres.
All new admiralty charts are in metric units, including depths in metres and
tide tables are quoted in metres.
In reply to the statement "but the United Kingdom isn't mostly metric", it is, except for a few highly visible things, best epitomised by my visits to the maternity wards when my children were born - the scales were in kilograms, but there was a hand-written conversion chart. That was many years ago. I understand that these days, the new mother is given a
"Red book" which keeps a copy of the baby's record. The red book is totally metric.
First of all, when I said "common life", I was referring to the units that are most commonly encountered and used in conversation by the general public.
Secondly, driver location signs aren't intended for use by the general public, but instead by those working for Highways England.
Thirdly, the most common keg size for beer and ale holds 11 imperial gallons (88 pints). You may have gotten confused with wine or European beer kegs which commonly hold 50 litres.
You also stated people measure themselves in imperial units, but doctors record data in metric. I live in the United States, which uses US Customary units within many fields, and even over here medical data is recorded in metric units. If you didn't already know, the US scientific and medical fields only use metric.
The HM Land Registry officially uses hectares, but as I stated, the general population reckon area in square feet and land in acres, which is why properties and land are advertised using imperial units.
Most of the railway network, excluding trams and closed systems, operate on imperial units and the supposed metric transition mandated by the European Union never took place and it probably won't, as the UK has left the EU.
While some admiralty charts are in metres others are in nautical miles. Distances are also signed in nautical miles, yards, and sometimes chains, however inner waterways, such as rivers, may use statute miles instead. Waterway speed limits are almost always in knots or miles per hour. Depth is indicated in both feet and metres and weather conditions may be reported in feet. There are also other imperial measures, which are used for other purposes in the naval sphere. I'm not going to bore you with all of the details, as I'm sure by now you understand imperial measures are still prominent in certain areas