The European Commission has decided not to ban the use of imperial measurements from 2009.
IT would be tempting to follow up my last “Cambridge Letter” by joining the torrent of comment on the elections which were its basis. What will happen about Scotland’s membership of the United Kingdom? How will Gordon Brown’s
approach to Prime Ministership differ from Tony Blair’s? What effect will Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in the French presidential election have on the future shape of the European Union?
I shall resist the temptation, however, because everything that could reasonably be said has filled the airwaves and newspaper pages during the past week. I shall turn instead to a minor British victory in a long-running battle with the bureaucrats of the European Commission — a victory for the metric martyrs.
It came when the Commission gave up plans to ban the use of imperial measurements from 2009. If the plans had been pursued, it would have been illegal to display weights in pounds and ounces, or lengths in yards, feet and inches. The U-turn means that, although metric measurements remain the required “legal tender”, their imperial equivalents may continue to be used as well.
Feelings have run high on the matter not, I genuinely believe, because of a kind of lingering neo-imperialism in our shops and markets. The case is, rather, one of convenience.
A matter of convenience
This may seem backward-looking, but as someone who has no problem, practically or emotionally, with metric measurement, I would argue that it is not. The fact which weighs with people (if you will pardon the pun) is that the pound is not just something they have used all their lives, but that it represents an entirely sensible quantity. It is interesting to note that for years the French, who have been metric for generations, used “livre” (pound) for half a kilo — which is roughly what it is.
The victory means that we can continue to buy a pound of sausages, or eight ounces (half a pound) of butter, and, come to that, we can continue to order a pint of beer in the pub. Half a litre does not have the same satisfactory ring to it. We can also measure our journeys in miles rather than kilometres, and buy some materials in metre lengths even though, bizarrely, their width may be given in inches (12 inches to the foot, three feet to the yard). Of course, to ensure that we do not fall into a pattern of consistency, we buy petrol by the litre but measure the performance of our cars in miles per gallon. It all helps to confuse foreign visitors — unless they come from the United States, which also uses miles rather than kilometres.
One of the delights of my schooldays was learning tables of weights and measures. What could be more logical than 16 drams to the ounce, 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone, two stones to the quarter, 112 pounds, or four quarters, to the hundredweight and 20 hundredweight to the ton? It was dead simple! (I still think of my own weight in stones; it seems much lighter than kilos.)
Interestingly, when British currency went decimal in 1971, although there was some regret, few found the new system difficult. (That said, there was a reported case of two old ladies overheard complaining with charming logic that the new currency should not have been introduced until all the old people had died.)
Easier to calculate
Given the complication of the old system of pounds, shillings and pence (LSD — no, not a drug), it is hardly surprising that decimal currency caught on. It was easy to learn that there were 12 pennies (pence) to the shilling, and 20 shillings to the pound, and not too difficult to know that a two-shilling coin was a florin. Knowing that a two shilling and sixpenny coin was a half crown, and that there were eight of these to the pound, required a slightly more sophisticated approach to mental arithmetic.
In our village, however, there was an elderly bookmaker (betting shop owner) who refused to use the decimal system, claiming that it was easier to work out odds in LSD.
I nearly forgot to mention the guinea. It was customary to pay certain fees in guineas (a guinea being 21 shillings). In the 1960s, when I did a lot of broadcasting for the BBC, I was paid in guineas per hour — in effect a five per cent bonus.
The decimal resisters were few. The metric martyrs would have been a more formidable force if they had been denied victory.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
Printer friendly
page Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
