Britishisms, UK Trip

UK Myth: The Metric System

Posted by Ron on

You know I thought everyone but the US was metric. I switched my GPS to kilometers in the US to get a feel for those distances.

The UK is NOT metric.

Traffic sign saying the hospital is in .5 miles. A fraction without the line.
Traffic sign saying the hospital is in .5 miles. A fraction without the line.
Speed limits and road signs are in miles. The sign at the right tells you the hospital is in .5 or 1/2 a mile. They use fractions on the signs, but don’t have the line in the middle. A speed limit sign is just a round red circle with a number in the middle. The number is assumed to be miles per hour.

Weights are in pounds. Heck people still refer to their weights in stones for God sakes.

Temperatures are in C, no F. Not sure Celsius is considered metric or not.

In liters..or, rather, litre.
In liters..or, rather, litre.
Liquid volume is in liters for things like gasoline/petrol, but not for alcohol. You order a pint or a half pint. Their soda come in 1.25 liter bottles. Soda cans are in milliliters.

Ireland With the constant idea of “anything the English do we don’t”, the Irish very much are metric.

Scotland Did you know the Scots invented the mile? Ok, I’m not sure they make that claim, but they do claim to have invented lots of stuff. And the do have their own Scottish mile.

2 Comments

  1. Pingback: The Metric System in the Media | More Than A Mile Behind: America and the Metric System
  2. Gavin Kirby says:
    June 30, 2014 at 1:21 pm

    >Weights are in pounds. Heck people still refer to their weights in stones for God sakes.

    No, pretty much everything sold by weight is weighed in grams or kilograms. It’s legal to display supplementary prices in pounds, but most shops don’t.

    >Temperatures are in C, no F. Not sure Celsius is considered metric or not.

    Yes, Celsius is the metric temperature scale.

    >Liquid volume is in liters for things like gasoline/petrol, but not for alcohol.

    Only draught beer and cider are sold in pints. Wine and spirits are always in millilitres, as are most kinds of bottled alcohol.

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