[Misc] Should we scrap imperial units and go fully metric?

[Pevenseagull]

This is the kind of shit that little 'men ' who are under 183 cm tall come up with

 

[Brovion]

I can still remember something I heard on TV in the 1970s when we were starting to adopt centigrade in everyday life, to help us get used to what the 'new' numbers meant in practice and it was this:

5, 10 and 21 - winter, spring and summer sun

For something so simple it's surprisingly accurate. Current data for Brighton suggests 7, 11 and 22 but global warming has meant a 1 deg rise in the last 50 yrs, so it really was a good metre-stick at the time.

Yes! That was on Tomorrow's World! (Raymond Baxter). To try and get recalcitrant Brits to adopt centigrade they had a competition to come up with a little mnemonic rhyme to help us relate to it, sort of like "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight", and that rhyme was the winner. I do remember when Baxter announced the competition he said "The prize? Well if it's good enough - immortality!" (They also offered something like a £5 book token as well or some other suitable 1970s BBC prize).

Sadly not only has the name of the winning writer disappeared from our collective memory, but I think you and I are the only two who actually remember the rhyme! Certainly I never hear it trotted out like 'red sky'.


EDIT: Probably have to be updated now to take into account climate change:
"10, 20, 41, winter, spring and f*** we're done!"

 

[Albion my Albion]

True. The only time I use Fahrenheit is when I'm talking to American friends or watching American TV and converting it to Celsius for my partner. She's five years younger and has absolutely no idea what Fahrenheit is.

My problem is that I can never remember what -40 C converts to F as.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

My problem is that I can never remember what -40 C converts to F as.

That's easy: times by 5, divide by 9 and add 32 ... or something like that.

Anyways, -40 is the same in F & C
But I know you knew that