Imperial units are stupid

[unbeliever]

Lets agree that metric units are best for engineering and imperial for customary organic measures.

Your weight fluctuates within half a stone everyday, waist measurements are ok done to an inch.

Beer can be sold in continental style half a litre glasses but pints are ok too.

But you don't want your space probe with all that confusion of different units.

 

It's very good of you to offer such a compromise. But no.

 

Metric units are better for everything where it makes a difference. For some narrow everyday purposes, imperial units are not worse. But mixing just causes confusion.

[spilldig]

The US product tax system is much fairer and much less open to commercial abuse than in the UK.

 

Tax rate are clearly visible on each product.

In the UK we have little idea of which product carries which rate of VAT eg chocolate biscuits, bars, cereal, cereal bars, confectionary etc..

 

The cost of the product is visible.

In the UK we buy on the basis of product + tax, how convenient it is that shops here round up the prices and pocket the increase.

 

PS The USA were the first country to go (partially) metric.

 

Agreed Annie. Much fairer, but different in every state so they should price their stock up to include local tax instead of adding it at the till. It just causes delays down the queue.

[buck]

I guess that a lot of coinage in US just goes into tins and pots ready for one of the counting machines, or charities.

 

After a couple of days I stopped using coins there and just used notes and threw the change into a pile everyday.

Which is what we all do. Surrendering to Europe is not an issue here. We do what we do for our own business here, with little or no concern for others except when they're in trouble and we have a pretty good record there. Call us stupid if it makes you happy, but it machs nicht.

 

---------- Post added 28-09-2016 at 15:34 ----------

 

It's a bit of a struggle spending change in America because of the local tax rate. I'e, you can look at the price of the things and get the exact money ready and then when you go to pay the local tax is added on so rather than hold the queue up you get a note out and pay and then get another load of change back.

Mind you, I like the way all local phone calls are toll free so at least you don't need change for those.

Most of us don't carry much cash, for fairly obvious reasons. We pay by debit or credit card. I only use debit cards. No hard currency passes hands, and its quick. Foreigners mess it up by standing there totting up exact change in coinage they have trouble recognizing. But we don't usually meet them outside Orlando or some other such paradise.

 

---------- Post added 28-09-2016 at 15:44 ----------

 

Agreed Annie. Much fairer, but different in every state so they should price their stock up to include local tax instead of adding it at the till. It just causes delays down the queue.

I In all the States I've ever been in, and thats most of them at some time or another. You pay the local tax at the till already figured into the final price. It might be that you ask for the tax to be configired seperately for some comeback available to tourists like freedom from VAT we get on visits to Ireland or the UK. Edited September 28, 2016 by buck

[spilldig]

Which is what we all do. Surrendering to Europe is not an issue here. We do what we do for our own business here, with little or no concern for others except when they're in trouble and we have a pretty good record there. Call us stupid if it makes you happy, but it machs nicht.

 

---------- Post added 28-09-2016 at 15:34 ----------

 

Most of us don't carry much cash, for fairly obvious reasons. We pay by debit or credit card. I only use debit cards. No hard currency passes hands, and its quick. Foreigners mess it up by standing there totting up exact change in coinage they have trouble recognizing. But we don't usually meet them outside Orlando or some other such paradise.

 

---------- Post added 28-09-2016 at 15:44 ----------

 

I In all the States I've ever been in, and thats most of them at some time or another. You pay the local tax at the till already figured into the final price. It might be that you ask for the tax to be configired seperately for some comeback available to tourists like freedom from VAT we get on visits to Ireland or the UK.

 

Same here visited most of them. Never had the tax figured in. Only in bars ,restaurants, cafes, etc , never in a shop.

[Mister M]

I like imperial units, and their strangeness. Keep them, I say.

[Aleksandr]

I like imperial units, and their strangeness. Keep them, I say.

If imperial units were officially deprecated then your continued use would make them even stranger, so that would be better for you, no?

[area 51]

I know both imperial and metric and so i am happy to have both.I would hate to have to drive to kilometres instead of miles per hour.I still ask for a pint of beer and still give my height as 5ft10 and 13 stones as my weight.I was born when we were imperial but i was taught metric at school.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

Q: why don't Americans (who're firmly still using Imperial measurements, not metric) use stones [weight] but only pounds?

[sgtkate]

The BBC doesn't use imperial or metric, they have their own measurements.

We have a months rain in a day,no we don't otherwise it wouldn't rain again that month, areas are measured in football pitches and height in double decker buses etc.

 

That always makes me laugh, the Beeb standard units:

 

Buses

Tennis pitches

Football pitches

Bath tubs

[unbeliever]

Q: why don't Americans (who're firmly still using Imperial measurements, not metric) use stones [weight] but only pounds?

 

It's the hundredweight. They use the short ton (2000 lb) instead of the long ton (2240 lb) which means than they use the short hundredweight (100 lb) rather than the long hundredweight (112 lb). In the UK 1 stone = 14 lb, and 1 hundredweight (cwt) = 8 stone (112lb). That doesn't work if you're using the short hundredweight as 1 cwt = 7.142857142857143 stone. So they dropped the stone.