Offensive language

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Surprised to see reference to cm in latest ME, ok for dressmakers but mm in a model engineers magazine surely?

(Smoke rings Wallis & Wallis auctions)

Bill D

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

the measurements should probably have been imperial anyway

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

I tend to work in a hybrid system – Impectric !!

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

Millifeet and centiyards? Terabushels and megapints?

kilobucks/kiloeuro and megacents too I guess.

Love it. Don't tell Brussels though.

[keithmartParticipant @keithmart]

Love the megapints

Keith

Leeds UK

[MadMikeParticipant @madmike]

My bladder problem means that I only Millipeed this morning. LOL.

[Tony JeffreeParticipant @tonyjeffree56510]

Posted by Jeff Dayman on 06/11/2012 23:47:25:

Millifeet and centiyards? Terabushels and megapints?

kilobucks/kiloeuro and megacents too I guess.

Love it. Don't tell Brussels though.

I favour the FFF system (Furlong, Firkin, Fortnight):

**LINK**

Regards,

Tony

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

Tony ,

The Firkin that you mention is universally used as a measurement by workers in the construction industries . I have many times heard such people say that supplied RSJ's are ' two Firkin long ' only for them to be told in reply to ' cut a Firkin bit off them then '.

Don't know the strict definition of a unit Firkin and I suspect that my spelling may be wrong .

Regards ,

Michael Willliams .

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

This is deadly serious guys, my wife used to work in a school and was always quoting cm at me, just to annoy me I think. I said why are they teaching cm when we are trying to get kids interested in engineering, we will have a future generation growing up as flower arrangers and dressmakers instead!!

Ah well, back to my little world of mm (and inches of course)

Incidentally I work in fan engineering (way past retirement I hasten to add) where mm, inches, m3, ft3, psi, " Hg, "water, N/mm2, Mbar, Pascal etc etc (to name but a few) are still common place, so much for standardisation.

Bill D.

[Ian AbbottParticipant @ianabbott31222]

I tend to use the "Oh, about that much" scale.

Ian

[speelwerkParticipant @speelwerk]

Perhaps someone can explain to me how it came that in the UK distances and maximum road speeds are given in miles but head room height of bridges is in meters (with mm accuracy) and petrol is sold in liters.

Niko.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Decimetre.

I'll get my coat…

Neil

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Grand daughter after being told that something at school was so many cm stood up in class and said.

"My grandpa says that only the BBC and dressmakers use centimetres"

So now they use cm and mm, "just for your grandpa"

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by speelwerk on 07/11/2012 21:52:03:

Perhaps someone can explain to me how it came that in the UK distances and maximum road speeds are given in miles but head room height of bridges is in meters (with mm accuracy) and petrol is sold in liters.

Niko.

Niko,

I think petrol is sold in liters to conceal the reality of the price per gallon.

MichaelG.

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

OK how about….

nano parsecs per micro fortnight?

[Donhe7Participant @donhe7]

Posted by jason udall on 08/11/2012 01:27:21:

OK how about….

nano parsecs per micro fortnight?

And what happened to Metric Time??

donhe7

[mike TParticipant @miket56243]

How long will it be before they insist we all use a metric protractor with 400 graduations instead of 360 degrees?

**LINK**

Mike

[BaldricParticipant @baldric]

Posted by MICHAEL WILLIAMS on 07/11/2012 18:13:26:

Tony ,

The Firkin that you mention is universally used as a measurement by workers in the construction industries . I have many times heard such people say that supplied RSJ's are ' two Firkin long ' only for them to be told in reply to ' cut a Firkin bit off them then '.

Don't know the strict definition of a unit Firkin and I suspect that my spelling may be wrong .

Regards ,

Michael Willliams .

A firkin is one of the units of measurement for beer barrels, see **LINK**

It also appears to be a measurement of many other things, but have a different meaning depending on what you are measuring, which seems a bit odd! See **LINK**

Off course this assumes wikipedia is correct….

Baldric

[Tony JeffreeParticipant @tonyjeffree56510]

Posted by Baldric on 08/11/2012 09:19:36:

A firkin is one of the units of measurement for beer barrels, see **LINK**

It also appears to be a measurement of many other things, but have a different meaning depending on what you are measuring, which seems a bit odd! See **LINK**

Off course this assumes wikipedia is correct….

Baldric

Sounds like it is no firkin use at all…

Regards,

Tony

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

Posted by Donhe7 on 08/11/2012 01:50:00:

Posted by jason udall on 08/11/2012 01:27:21:

OK how about….

nano parsecs per micro fortnight?

And what happened to Metric Time??

donhe7

sorry guys that should have been atto parsecs per micro fortnight… ( roughly equivalent to inches per second (1.00432680290) &nbsp…

Some wag once relabled a reel to reel tape recorder in those units.. Oh how we laughed..

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Over here in Canada, kids (and, adults) are taught metric, but go to the DIY stores, where everything is basically shipped from the USA, and almost everything is in inches/feet.

Earlier this week I went to "Home Depot", and quickly did a conversion for wire from a spool, and asked for "12 feet 14/4 stranded". The helper sheepishly told me that, now their measuring device does metric, so he'd have to convert my measurement to metric. They are progressing!

If only materiel (steel, brass, etc) was in metric, I'd be really happy. It's all inch, unless you get something special, like silver steel.

Another JohnS.

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Good for grandpa, my hero.

Bill D.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Posted by Bill Dawes on 08/11/2012 19:10:55:

Good for grandpa, my hero.

Bill D.

?

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

May I please ask what this thread has to do about offensive laguage and more importantly anything about ME any sane engineer has a calculator or vernier to do conversions.

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