More than thirty years ago, the British government made a final decision to gradually bid farewell to the old, traditional, time-tested but incomprehensible to anyone except the British system of weights and measures, to bid farewell to all those pounds, feet, inches, yards, pints, gallons, ounces, miles, and degrees Fahrenheit, and to adopt meters, liters, kilograms, and degrees Celsius. But although Britain, adapting to its European neighbors, officially switched to the metric system several years ago, still far from all residents of the country are accurately oriented in the units of measurement accepted throughout the rest of Europe, regardless of whether they use lever scales or pharmacy scales. That is, roughly like immigrants in America.
At the end of the television news broadcast, the weather forecaster talks about tomorrow's weather. He gives the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, although behind him, on a huge map of Britain, it is shown in degrees Celsius. But if the forecast were given only in degrees Celsius, more than half of Britons would not understand whether it would be cold or hot.
Weather forecasts are far from the only barrier of misunderstanding currently separating Britain from the continent. For example, all judicial and law enforcement agencies in the country still operate using the old system of measures. Near police stations, you can always see a 'Wanted by Police' board with portraits and descriptions of criminals. Their height is given in the old system – say, 5 feet 8 inches. A foreigner without a calculator would not guess that they should be looking for a suspect 172 centimeters tall.
Road signs on British roads are also old. Distance and speed limits are shown in miles and only in miles. The only place worse is Ireland. There, they have started converting to kilometers, but they are doing it too slowly and extremely carelessly. Therefore, complete chaos reigns on Irish roads. You see a sign: 15 to such-and-such town, but you don't know whether it's miles or kilometers.
But let's return to Britain. Here, another unit of measurement remains the same – volume of liquids. An extremely important unit not only for physicists and motorists. And in a traditional English pub, beer is still served only in pints.
The situation is clearly not helped by the fact that the United States, where the same 'British' system of measures is in use, does not plan to switch to the metric system in the near or distant future. However, dear immigrants from the USSR, be optimistic: after all, the British government managed to succeed in a similar situation in 1971. Then, an unusual monetary reform took place in the country. Prior to it, the pound sterling consisted of twenty shillings, each shilling of twelve pence, and each penny of four farthings. There was also a special monetary unit – the guinea, slightly larger than a pound (not twenty shillings, but twenty-one). The reform brought that division to the system familiar to the whole world. Now the pound consists of one hundred pence, and only the older generation remembers guineas, shillings, and farthings. The British got used to the new money. Perhaps they will get used to the metric system?..
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