On Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:22:48 +1000, Trish Brown
<pmcbrown@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in aus.gardens:
>
>Hm. I was born in 1955 and, believe it or not, still think in the
>imperial measures I learned at school. In fact, I still use 'two bob'
>instead of '20c'!
>
>You can have no conception of what it was like, trying to do sums in
>imperial weights and measures *and worse*, doing sums in £, s and d! Not
>only that, but we also had guineas and sovereigns to deal with!
>Urrrggghhh! Betty and Jim (the proprietors of my primary school maths
>book) taught me how many rods, poles or perches there were in a mile.
>How many yards in a furlong. How many chains in a cricket pitch (ie
>one). How many pennyweight in an ounce. I could go on.
>
>So please don't tell us elder persons to forget or change that which was
>learned at *great cost* in our childhoods! Mumblemumble... one thousand
>seven hundred and sixty yards, one mile... grumble... sixteen fluid
>ounces, one pint... crumble... twenty one ****llings in a guinea... and
>that bloody-well baker and his dozen!!! Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!
Ha I had to laugh, as one born in the first half of the last century I
hated the idea of going metric. I mean 12 is such a handy number
divides by 2, 3, 4, 6 etc etc and if you know the cost of a dozen eggs
then the cost of one is easy in LSD money (?). There is a measurement
for everything, all different units and all incompatable!
BUT Australia went metric and did it brilliantly, I am so glad that
they did. and while I still totally confuse my kids by saying things
like, "Push it toward me a couple of inches" Metric is such a grand
system.
On the other hand the British have spent nearly 50 years totally
stuffing up their conversion to metric (as an example look at their
Met site it is still in an absurd mixture of imperial and metric). My
last year at school in the UK was spent trying to cope with CGS then
MKS units as they dithered and changed their mind, Finally, I presume,
settling on SI units. And who in their right mind would not have
wanted to be part of a common European currency?
But it does piss me off that when I ask for a dozen rolls at the local
baker I only get 12! But the Vietnamese couple behind the counter are
always so nice to me I forgive them instantly ;)
All of which has nothing to do with gardening other than my block of
dirt is 186 feet long by 40 feet wide.
Regards
Dinsy
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum - Lucretius
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