Leominster in Herefordshire, UK is pronounced "Lemsta".
English, the Language.
- Thread starter iBender
- Start date
Leominster in Herefordshire, UK is pronounced "Lemsta".
Canada uses a hybrid system, like Britain. We started to metrify in the 70s and early 80s, and then--stopped.
Metric was still new to Canadians in 1974, when I was in grade 3. I remember this because I remember being given a measuring assignment in Math class. Our rulers were all metric--but the assignments themselves were in inches. So our teacher told us, essentially, to measure to the nearest centimetre.
Today, I seem to use metric for large, impersonal things, and Imperial for small, personal things. Long distances are in kilometres, temperature is in celsius, and milk and water come in litres. But a person's height and weight are in feet, inches, and pounds, and things get poured out in the kitchen in cups. I measure things in centimetres and metres, but I can switch to inches and feet, if it's easier. And the field in the Canadian Football League is still 110 yards long.
I understand most Imperial measurements, I think. Quarts and yards, for example, are just smaller versions of litres and metres. But there are some I don't understand at all. A "stone," for example. Or an ounce. Or temperatures in Fahrenheit. Or even a gallon.
And as every true Canadian knows, a case of twelve Imperial beers converts to fifty-six metric beers.
Metric was still new to Canadians in 1974, when I was in grade 3. I remember this because I remember being given a measuring assignment in Math class. Our rulers were all metric--but the assignments themselves were in inches. So our teacher told us, essentially, to measure to the nearest centimetre.
Today, I seem to use metric for large, impersonal things, and Imperial for small, personal things. Long distances are in kilometres, temperature is in celsius, and milk and water come in litres. But a person's height and weight are in feet, inches, and pounds, and things get poured out in the kitchen in cups. I measure things in centimetres and metres, but I can switch to inches and feet, if it's easier. And the field in the Canadian Football League is still 110 yards long.
I understand most Imperial measurements, I think. Quarts and yards, for example, are just smaller versions of litres and metres. But there are some I don't understand at all. A "stone," for example. Or an ounce. Or temperatures in Fahrenheit. Or even a gallon.
And as every true Canadian knows, a case of twelve Imperial beers converts to fifty-six metric beers.
The pronunciations aren't really identical, but there are similarities in pronunciation for a number of place names. Most likely the locations keeping the pronunciations of the folks who came over. I guessed at the Bicester pronunciation based on how we'd say Gloucester back home. I imagine most Americans would have said Bi-chester or Bi-sester for Bicester.
Canada uses a hybrid system, like Britain. We started to metrify in the 70s and early 80s, and then--stopped.
Metric was still new to Canadians in 1974, when I was in grade 3. I remember this because I remember being given a measuring assignment in Math class. Our rulers were all metric--but the assignments themselves were in inches. So our teacher told us, essentially, to measure to the nearest centimetre.
Today, I seem to use metric for large, impersonal things, and Imperial for small, personal things. Long distances are in kilometres, temperature is in celsius, and milk and water come in litres. But a person's height and weight are in feet, inches, and pounds, and things get poured out in the kitchen in cups. I measure things in centimetres and metres, but I can switch to inches and feet, if it's easier. And the field in the Canadian Football League is still 110 yards long.
I understand most Imperial measurements, I think. Quarts and yards, for example, are just smaller versions of litres and metres. But there are some I don't understand at all. A "stone," for example. Or an ounce. Or temperatures in Fahrenheit. Or even a gallon.
And as every true Canadian knows, a case of twelve Imperial beers converts to fifty-six metric beers.
Ask a Brit their weight chances they'll answer in stones i.e 9 stone 4 (lbs)
Though when is a gallon not a gallon as there are something like 3 of them. Imperial Gallon (~4.54ltr), US dry (~4.4ltr?) and US wet Gallon (~3.8ltr?)
Japan?
But they can have my zeds when they pry them from my cold, dead mouth!
Indeed. One of the things I hate about getting the Yank call centre when I call Oracle is reading off a serial number with a Z in it; I automatically say "zed" and they start to repeat it and stop because they don't know what that is apparently. Give me strength!
wei
Although I'll warrant thinking of fuel economy is a bit awkward in litres/100km as opposed to mpg, I do wish we used kph and km on the roads instead of miles; ditto for SI weight. The stone is such an awkward unit of measurement - actually I find all the imperial weights and volumes horribly obtuse. I just fake it when I see an American recipe because I cannot for the life of me remember the difference between a fluid and dry ounce (that isn't an invite to point it out).
Apparently the main thing stopping the UK from going the rest of the way is the cost of replacing all the road signage which seems pretty lame. At the very least I hope to see the phase out of imperial measurements on packaged goods in time.
I have a YouTube video of myself scoring 10000+ in Just Dance 2: Tik Tok. I speak at the end, though it's more of an exultation...
Have you signed up for The Neutral Zone? There's a thread in TNZ in which people have been posting short recorded messages. You could hear their voices therein.
The reasons for this are kind of... um... well, you'll understand when you see them.
They're safe for work, anyway.
See, to me, this just underlines the irrational, arbitrary, and even whimsical nature of the Imperial system.
I did not know that a 'stone' was fourteen pounds, until I looked it up, just now.
And I thought:
Seriously? Fourteen pounds? Who the hell counts anything in units of fourteen?And where would this even come from? Are there many fourteen-pound stones in Great Britain? Is there a standard stone, against which all other stones are measured? The Stone of St. So-and-So, locked in a vault somewhere?
But even better--eight stone make a hundredweight--even though 8 x 14 = 112. I still remember the first time I came across the abbreviation "cwt" in a book. What the hell? I thought.
The Metric system isn't perfect. In fact, I think it's seriously lacking in homely, everyday units like the foot or the cup. As strange as the "stone" may seem to me, I understand why people use it.
But the Metric system is at least regular. Once you know the prefixes, you don't have to worry about anything being 14 of this, or 112 of that.
Sorry but I'd rather my taxes are used on things like oh the NHS, Education, MoD.
Plus of course if you changed the signs, what about the odometers in cars. Surely they would need to be changed as well. After ll what's the point in having the distance if km if cars are still recording distance in miles.
And whilst speedeo's show both mph and kph, the kph is secondary. So could require more than a cursory glance to check your speed.
At the end of the day what benefits would a change from miles to kilometre's bring to the average person?
I can't see any, and i suspect any government that brought in that change would see themselves voted out of office at the next election. Then the media would spin the change as as an EU directive.
As for ounce it's approx 28g which is 28ml. a fluid ounce = ~28ml (using the imperial system) or ~30ml (US)
Well, we sell petrol in litres, so the maths would be a bit easier fuel-economy-wise for one thing. The car bits aren't difficult - hell we don't even appear to have a domestic auto parts industry of consequence!
I agree it's a small thing, but I think people would have to be pretty bored to vote a government out for something so trivial as road signage...
No I haven´t. How does one sign up for this? Though if its so rough inside there I don´t know if I want to sign up. Me = angelic pure and quite defensless (at least in English).
But when recorded things can get posted there, can´t they here in Misc?
In LOTR Fandom we once read chapters of the books in turns. That was fun. Everybody could listen to everybody and it was not naughty or anything.
TerokNor
Possibly, but the voters would see it as an unecessary waste of tax payers money. And a move to bring us inline with mainland europe. Which given the current public mood regarding the EU would be a disaster for any party.
No I haven´t. How does one sign up for this? Though if its so rough inside there I don´t know if I want to sign up. Me = angelic pure and quite defensless (at least in English).
One of us. ONE OF US!
But seriously: see here for instructions.
The thread in question is called "Bring Back the Countdown".
There's no requirement to stick around, if you're not interested in anything else, or if you don't feel comfortable with the sort of discussion that goes on in TNZ. It does tend to get a bit heated and personal.
Please, I hope Britain never switches to driving on the right-hand side of the road. It was bad enough when you Brits decimalized your money forty years ago. Next thing, you’ll be abolishing the monarchy!
BTW, do judges and barristers in British courts still wear those silly wigs?
Speedos show far too much of the male anatomy, IMHO.
Yeah, it's actually much less heated and venomous than it's claimed to be in other places of the board. Truth to be told, tho, most of our resident idiots were driven away by our sheer awesomeness or got themselves banned for being obvious trolls.
So, it's pretty quiet these days. But we do enjoy a good scorching sometimes!
So, it's pretty quiet these days. But we do enjoy a good scorching sometimes!
Given the big fuss so many people make about it, I always think newcomers are going to be disappointed by TNZ - oh no, they talk about politics and call each other nasty names
Back in the early 70's when I was a kid, we could still use old thruppences alongside the new coinage at school for a short while after decimalisation to buy snacks. Not sure why, but we could.
I should have explained. My seeing it as rude stems from the common German misconception that pronto means quick. There's an expression here, "Aber pronto!" (But pronto!), that gets used after you told someone to do something and it means 'but quickly'. It's rather rude and usually only used in a joking manner. I have no idea how this mistranslation happened. But whenever I hear Italians answer the phone with "pronto" I think they say, "you better be quick about it."
Also with you on farenheit, it just seems so random. Celsius has a completely arbitrary basis too of course, but at least it is broadly consistent with our other measurements - length and mass are based around water so why not temperature?
Of course we should use Kelvin but I've never heard anyone use that outside a university
Yeah, "Man, it's freezing cold, only 263°!" just doesn't roll off the tongue so easily, does it?
Given the big fuss so many people make about it, I always think newcomers are going to be disappointed by TNZ - oh no, they talk about politics and call each other nasty names
Yeah, I worry about that, too. People end up having all those expectations and then it's just people discussing stuff, mostly in a mature way, and they're disappointed.
Similar threads
