"FarmI" <ask@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
be given> wrote in message
news:47f7312e$0$13270$5a62ac22@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Dinsdale Pirana" <Dinsdale@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> 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.
>
> I agree.
>
> In fact I was rather amused at Trish's comments as I'm older than her
and
> her comments about how hard it was getting a handle on metric didn't
cause
> a quaver of recognition at all for me.
>
> I love metric, and being a keen cook, I can automatically convert
between
> metric, Imperial and American measures. Iused to have problems though
if
> a recipe called for a "stick of butter". I used to guess based on the
> recipe but finally had to ask on a US dominated ng to find out that it
is
> 4 oz of butter.
>
> For woodwork, metric has got to be the best system out. Dunno how
anyone
> can do fine woodworking using inches etc. but I can cut a dovetail to a
> half mm without any probs :-))
Don't you mean .5 of a mm ?
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