Why are Irish people so resistant to the metric system?

Iwannahurl · 29-12-2010 11:42PM #1

Another thread in AH ('How tall are you') got me wondering.

Why are Irish people so resistant to the metric system?

AFAIK (since I'm long out of the loop) metric measures are taught as standard in Irish primary and secondary schools. So why are Irish people young and old still going on about outdated and awkward miles, yards, feet, inches, stones, pounds and ounces?

I have seen French, German and Dutch traders in farmers' markets having to abandon the rationality and simplicity of metric weights because their Irish customers of all ages can't or won't bring themselves to order tomatoes or potatoes in grammes or kilos.

There are estate agents still banging on about acres, roods and perches. And even a paper like the Irish Times, including in its coverage of science and technology, can still be found mixing Imperial and metric units in the one page, sometimes the one article.

These clunky and eccentric Imperial units were bequeathed to us by our former colonial rulers. We kept them in 1937, along with the wig & gown and a host of other relics of the British Empire, when we could have ditched them and embraced metric as just one symbol of a new beginning for a new nation.

While there may have been practical reasons for hanging on to Imperial units in the early days, what possible excuse have we now, at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century? Why are our school-age children still stuck in the same fusty time-warp?

To the best of my knowledge the Irish government started to move formally towards the metric system as far back as 1969. I believe that the metric system may even have been officially adopted when we joined the EEC (or whatever it was called back in the day) and that the use of metric units was to become the standard in all sorts of applications and settings.

So how far have we progressed? I found the text below in the online archives of the Oireachtas (Seanad debates):

The superiority of the decimal system is incontestable from the point of view of arithmetical simplicity. For this reason alone I think the motion should commend itself to the Seanad. It is a very important fact that by adopting the metric system we would save at least, I think, two years' training of the children in school. One of the great drawbacks of the English system is the lack of any connection between one set of tables and another. They are mostly of a lengthy and complicated character, and involve an incalculable waste of time in learning during school years, and are mostly forgotten shortly afterwards. [...] The British system has really nothing to recommend it except the fact that it exists. It is hopelessly out of date.

"Hopelessly out of date." Senator J. T. O'Farrell (later Labour Party president) said that in 1923!

He must be spinning in his grave. Furiously, six feet under...

orourkeda · 29-12-2010 11:43PM

Because they're stupid

pablomakaveli · 29-12-2010 11:44PM

I love the metric system. It makes sense.

Spunge · 29-12-2010 11:45PM

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it

Carl Sagan · 29-12-2010 11:45PM

I generally just use feet and inches along with kilos because everyone around me understands those.

Gaudizeit · 29-12-2010 11:46PM

pablomakaveli wrote: »

I love the metric system. It makes sense.

Ya it's miles better than the other one.

BigBenRoeth · 29-12-2010 11:46PM

When everyones used to the imperial system whats the point in changing

Turtyturd · 29-12-2010 11:46PM

We are still hung up on Marathon bars, Opal Fruits and penny jelly's never mind the metric system.

antodeco · 29-12-2010 11:47PM

There's no other country in the world that uses every measurement possible. Liters, pints, feet, miles, grams, pounds, etc. It's unique!

Pete M. · 29-12-2010 11:47PM

Another silly generalisation.

I always use metric when solving problems, but revert to the imperial vernacular when conversing with the traditionally inclined and elderly or yanks.

1 inch is approximately 25.4 mm btw.....

BigBenRoeth · 29-12-2010 11:48PM

Iwannahurl wrote: »

I have seen French, German and Dutch traders in farmers' markets having to abandon the rationality and simplicity of metric weights because their Irish customers of all ages can't or won't bring themselves to order tomatoes or potatoes in grammes or kilos.

Oh the humanity

Iwannahurl · 29-12-2010 11:48PM

Carl Sagan wrote: »

I generally just use feet and inches along with kilos because everyone around me understands those.

If everyone used metric then everyone would understand metric.

Mixing up the units is even more puzzling, IMO. For example, how do you easily work out BMI with ', " and kg?

orourkeda · 29-12-2010 11:49PM

Gaudizeit wrote: »

Ya it's miles better than the other one.

Miles O'Toole

pablomakaveli · 29-12-2010 11:49PM

Gaudizeit wrote: »

Ya it's kilometres better than the other one.

FYP

AntiMatter · 29-12-2010 11:50PM

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Mixing up the units is even more puzzling, IMO. For example, how do you easily work out BMI with ', " and kg?

It's as if you coughed mid-sentence.

Pete M. · 29-12-2010 11:50PM

BigBenRoeth wrote: »

When everyones used to the imperial system whats the point in changing

I remember someone saying that in 1983, it's one of my first memories.

And I reckon if we had a 'Dublin Commune' for just a little while we'd catch on:cool:

galwayrush · 29-12-2010 11:51PM

I drank 3.784 lites of beer last night.

ejmaztec · 29-12-2010 11:52PM

Feckin metric fascists, give em an inch and they'll take 1.609344 kilometres.:mad:

Guill · 29-12-2010 11:52PM

3 goats per cow makes sense.

25.4mm per inch is just crazy! how can there be 25.4 of something in 1?

All joking aside, my job requires me to use both, when i started the job i could not figure out inches. 10 years later i do some work in mm and some in inches.
We make stuff for America, UK and Europe.

whatsyourquota · 29-12-2010 11:53PM

Sometimes it just makes since not to use the metric system, your hardly going to go into a bar and ask for 568ml of beer please. Or the standard mile, everything seems to be a mile away in Ireland and I think its just weird to say thats about 1.6km away.
Obvioulsy I use the metric system for all calculations because otherwise the answer is just wrong

Iwannahurl · 29-12-2010 11:53PM

Pete M. wrote: »

Another silly generalisation.

I always use metric when solving problems, but revert to the imperial vernacular when conversing with the traditionally inclined and elderly or yanks.

1 inch is approximately 25.4 mm btw.....

Contradictory.

How can school-children be "traditionally inclined"? You ask them their height or to estimate a distance, and my bet is that most Irish kids will use Imperial units. That's not tradition, and if it's the vernacular then I wonder what that says about the effectiveness of our primary and secondary education?

Conor108 · 29-12-2010 11:54PM

http://jeremyglover.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/lolcatz/images/20081209070916_funny-pictures-cat-curses-the-metric-system.jpg

Probably woulda gone insane if we used imperial units in physics...

Joey the lips · 29-12-2010 11:54PM

I work in Heating and plumbing bathrooms and tiles. Everything inheating is imperial after the boiler. Plumbing Imperial bathrooms. Imperial Tiles imperial.

I sell tiles in yards but buy in meters.

I calculate the meterage of rooms and convert it to yards.

Why? Yards apear cheaper because they are smaller.

FYI: It was calculated that 1/10 of all what america produces is exported so the cost to change all there systems to metric is not justified. Its imperial all the way for them

The only industry 100% metric is the Space and Nuclear industry

Femto/Pico/Nano/Micro/Milli/Cent/Meter/KM

TheMilkyPirate · 29-12-2010 11:56PM

I don't know how to put this into words but i know how long a mile is or an inch is or a foot is i'm not familiar with the metric system as well as i am with the imperial so i prefer the imperial system. If someone told me there car was doing 160mph i'd know it was going pretty damn fast but if someone told me there car was doing 190km/h i'd have to think about it which annoys me... alot. I'm lazy.

Carl Sagan · 29-12-2010 11:59PM

Iwannahurl wrote: »

If everyone used metric then everyone would understand metric.

Mixing up the units is even more puzzling, IMO. For example, how do you easily work out BMI with ', " and kg?

Well, I don't. And when I do, I just convert them?

I can use either system, but when any sort of measurement comes up in conversation, I'm always asked; what's that in feet? What's that in kg?

up for anything · 30-12-2010 12:00AM

If I asked any of you men how long is your penis, would you answer six inches or 150mm give or take a few millimetres?

ScumLord · 30-12-2010 12:00AM

Variety is the spice of life.

starlit · 30-12-2010 12:01AM

Whutttt!?

I don't understand physics!

Claasman · 30-12-2010 12:01AM

'...who keeps the metric system down?'

'weeeee doooooo!!'

Iwannahurl · 30-12-2010 12:03AM

Joey the lips wrote: »

I work in Heating and plumbing bathrooms and tiles. Everything inheating is imperial after the boiler. Plumbing Imperial bathrooms. Imperial Tiles imperial.

I sell tiles in yards but buy in meters.

I calculate the meterage of rooms and convert it to yards.

Why? Yards apear cheaper because they are smaller.

FYI: It was calculated that 1/10 of all what america produces is exported so the cost to change all there systems to metric is not justified. Its imperial all the way for them

The only industry 100% metric is the Space and Nuclear industry

Femto/Pico/Nano/Micro/Milli/Cent/Meter/KM

What, even in France, home of Metric?

FFS, most of Africa is officially metric. Theoretically so is the UK.

Iwannahurl · 30-12-2010 12:05AM

up for anything wrote: »

If I asked any of you men how long is your penis, would you answer six inches or 150mm give or take a few millimetres?

I believe the answer to that is: "it's six inches long but I don't use it as a rule."

Why are Irish people so resistant to the metric system?

Comments