Metric Britain

I detest running. It is the most soul-crushingly monotonous recreational activity that mankind has inflicted upon itself. However with lockdowns, advancing age, limited exercise options and a fervent desire to not get a belly, it has become a necessary evil.  I now look forward to going for a run. This is temporary. But even in on a cold, grey day, it's an opportunity to absorb some daylight, catch up on a podcast and maybe even smile at another human being.   Despite going running almost every other day now, I don't cover huge distances. I average 5 to 10 km. People often seem quite impressed by that. I don't know why.  What does impress me is that whenever I'm asked how far I've run and I give an answer in kilometres, nobody asks me, "What's that in miles?"  People seem to simply understand.  The same universal understanding is not true when I use kilometres for anything else. For example, when giving someone directions. A significant proportion of p...

With the average person giving their height in feet and inches, weighing their babies in pounds and ounces, quoting distances in miles, it is very easy to forget that the metric system is the official system of measurements throughout the United Kingdom. This begs the question: Why does the imperial system still dominate our speech? To answer the sub question, I will focus primarily on road signs, the vast majority of which are in imperial measures (typically miles and yards). With these being the measurements which most people see on a day to day basis, it impacts the decision people make regarding measurements. Seeing miles and yards on the road is more likely to make an individual speak in miles and yards for distances - in spite of their education in metres and kilometres. This has the knock-on effect of using miles per gallon for fuel consumption (although you would struggle to find an imperial gallon anywhere around) and miles per hour for speed. This has wider impacts in the m...

Anyone who has ever had to consult their iPhone for directions would notice one catastrophic failing - their failure to use metric units on their map feature. When I first got my iPhone (almost two years ago now), just like a child with a new toy I was very keen to test out the new features. My first order of business was to find the settings to change the units to metric and lo and behold, there was no option to change it. It seems like Apple use miles exclusively for the Anglophone world, despite the fact that the majority of the English-speaking world officially uses metric units. A bit of research shows that on the original iPhone, the map only featured metric units. These were replaced with exclusively imperial units (probably due to complaints from the overly vocal 'Imperialists') In any case, it is a shame that, at least there is no facility to at least switch units. I suppose only time will tell, but let's keep our fingers crossed that Apple do sort thi...