"Pheww it's 90 today" or "Pheww it's 32 today"?

[swt_passenger]

Hadn‘t heard of that “acre foot” for volume. But how to visualise an acre?

Forget about how much ploughing a team of oxen can do, it’s just a furlong by a cricket pitch...

 

[Bedpan]

Is there a standard size for a cricket pitch?

Mrs BR assures me that a cup is a standard measure of volume in baking terms (not weight), and it is 240ml. Or put another way 4 doz. teaspoons.

I tried filling a teacup (Mrs B's best!) with sugar and I only managed to get 38 teaspoonfuls in despite the fact that some were slightly heaped. Next task is to measure the teacup, and see what a 240ml one actually looks like.

 

[Bayum]

We have a strange approach in the UK. When its hot its farenheit 80, 85, 90. when it's cold its centigrade. -5, -20 etc. As mentioned largely tabloid led.

Centigrade for me.

Never heard that. Always heard it referred to in Celsius.

 

[eMeS]

Never heard that. Always heard it referred to in Celsius.

I've lived with centigrade since around 1951, and I think "Celsius" has become more common recently.

 

[xotGD]

I've lived with centigrade since around 1951, and I think "Celsius" has become more common recently.

Probably at the same time Marathon became Snickers!

I wonder if Fahrenheit 451 was converted to Celsius when it was published in mainland Europe?

 

[si404]

I've lived with centigrade since around 1951, and I think "Celsius" has become more common recently.

Celsius was made the official name of the unit in 1948...

Is there a standard size for a cricket pitch?

pitch is very precisely defined and standardised because it's just the area with the wickets.

The boundary is loosely defined.

 

[Sand_elf]

I remember Elton John singing "temperature's up to 95" in 1983. I tend to think in Celsius and metric now
The only measurement I've stuck with is the mile

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I remember Elton John singing "temperature's up to 95" in 1983. I tend to think in Celsius and metric now
The only measurement I've stuck with is the mile

That's the same with me. I tend to think in metric/SI for everything, except distance, for which:

• Anything on a scale of metres or less - things like how long a room is - I'm equally comfortable with metres or feet/inches and will randomly swap between them on a whim
• Things on a scale of 1 cm or less I will always use SI
• But when travelling, and looking at how far I need to go, it's always miles. And I'm very conscious that, if you say that a distance is something like 10 miles, I instantly feel I have a sense of how far that is. But on the other hand, if you say it's 10km, there's a fraction of a second where I'm doing a rough conversion to 6 miles before I have that instinctive sense of how far it is.
• Yet oddly, if it's heights, then I think only in metric. If you tell me a hill is - say - 1000 feet high, then I'll mentally convert that to 300 metres before I have a sense of how high that means. (And yes I know, that's a very high hill!)

Strange the way your brain gets used to things!

 

[nlogax]

I remember Elton John singing "temperature's up to 95" in 1983. I tend to think in Celsius and metric now
The only measurement I've stuck with is the mile

Argh, 'Cold As Christmas' earworm. Cheers for that

 

[RichT54]

A classic example recently in the Mail Online which gives every temperature in Fahrenheit, followed in some cases by Celsius in parentheses.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...oast-104-F-temperatures-three-four-years.html

Britain may regularly roast in temperatures over 104°F by the end of this century, Met Office warns

• Met Office predicts temperatures 104°F and over will be reached every 3.5 years
• The UK recorded its hottest temperature ever in Cambridge in July 2019 – 101.7°F
• But this could occur regularly due to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions

When you look at the original report, all the temperatures were given solely in Celsius.

 

[nlogax]

A classic example recently in the Mail Online which gives every temperature in Fahrenheit, followed in some cases by Celsius in parentheses.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...oast-104-F-temperatures-three-four-years.html



When you look at the original report, all the temperatures were given solely in Celsius.

This may also be a case of 'know your audience' on their part.

 

[westv]

Is there a standard size for a cricket pitch?

1 chain between wickets I believe.

 

[si404]

This may also be a case of 'know your audience' on their part.

I'm pretty sure there's a house style whereby temperatures expressing hot weather (which would probably be defined) need to be expressed in Fahrenheit. It's the '32 is meh' problem, whereby 90 sounds hotter (and, in winter, 0 sounds colder), but given we're talking 40C here, it's not like that doesn't sound really hot without being 104F - but the house style forces their hand to make stuff like 70F/21C sound summery at other times.

 

[Butts]

Living in Scotland I will have to give a theoretical response to the unlikelihood of achieving such a temperature requiring the choice between Farenheit and Celsius to describe it.

However definitely 90F not 32C.....

Do the 32C people describe their height in metres and weight in Kg's ? ( rather than feet/inches & stone/pounds)

Bring back LSD - the money not the drug !!

 

[Bald Rick]

Do the 32C people describe their height in metres and weight in Kg's ? ( rather than feet/inches & stone/pounds)

Speaking personally, yes!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Do the 32C people describe their height in metres and weight in Kg's ? ( rather than feet/inches & stone/pounds)

Yep. Height - I will happily do either metres or feet/inches. Weight - I will always do kg. Stone/pounds takes me some effort to think about, very often involving a quick google to remind myself how heavy a stone is.

Bring back LSD - the money not the drug !!

Are you sure you wouldn't prefer Harry Potter currency? 29 Knuts in a Sickle and 17 Sickles in a Galleon. Far, far, better than trying to work out how many farthings are in a shilling

 

[si404]

The thing with £sd is that the only reason we have used stuff smaller than a shilling since the 90s is because we have 100p to the £ and therefore must use that 1p coin.

You'd only see d on petrol stations, though maybe the 6d coin would have lasted to the turn of the century as a half shilling - just as there was a decade with the half new pence (worth just over an old penny with the hapenny and definitely the farthing long gong)

There was a period of about 60-70 years when we moved from s/d (with expensive stuff l/s) purchases to exclusively l/s purchases. We decimalised two thirds of the way through that.

Many Euro countries don't mint anything 5c or less - ie work in shillings but multiply that number by 5 due to the 100 obsession. Pounds and shillings would work now - pennies are just too small.

 

[Bald Rick]

Bring back LSD - the money not the drug !!

Given that within a year or so, everyone who left school before decimalisation will be drawing a state pension, that would be ‘taking our country back’ to an extraordinary level!

 

[nlogax]

Given that within a year or so, everyone who left school before decimalisation will be drawing a state pension, that would be ‘taking our country back’ to an extraordinary level!

One particular survey back in 2017 which made the press indicated 9% of Leave voters actually wanted a return to pre-decimalisation days..

 

[AM9]

Yep. Height - I will happily do either metres or feet/inches. Weight - I will always do kg. Stone/pounds takes me some effort to think about, very often involving a quick google to remind myself how heavy a stone is. ...

6.36Kg.

 

[AM9]

One particular survey back in 2017 which made the press indicated 9% of Leave voters actually wanted a return to pre-decimalisation days..

That's because they think that everything will return to what it was like then!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

6.36Kg.

Thanks! Next time I forget and need to remind myself, I'll remember that, instead spending 5 seconds googling for it, I can spend 10 minutes searching through this thread for the answer instead. Much obliged

 

[mmh]

The thing with £sd is that the only reason we have used stuff smaller than a shilling since the 90s is because we have 100p to the £ and therefore must use that 1p coin.

You'd only see d on petrol stations, though maybe the 6d coin would have lasted to the turn of the century as a half shilling - just as there was a decade with the half new pence (worth just over an old penny with the hapenny and definitely the farthing long gong)

There was a period of about 60-70 years when we moved from s/d (with expensive stuff l/s) purchases to exclusively l/s purchases. We decimalised two thirds of the way through that.

Many Euro countries don't mint anything 5c or less - ie work in shillings but multiply that number by 5 due to the 100 obsession. Pounds and shillings would work now - pennies are just too small.

And 20 to the pound works perfectly. English has words for the numbers 1-20, not 1-10. It's almost as if it was designed...wait...

 

[AM9]

Thanks! Next time I forget and need to remind myself, I'll remember that, instead spending 5 seconds googling for it, I can spend 10 minutes searching through this thread for the answer instead. Much obliged

Pleased to be of service.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

And 20 to the pound works perfectly. English has words for the numbers 1-20, not 1-10. It's almost as if it was designed...wait...

What matters is not the English words, but that you'd making currency-arithmetic more complicated.

Look at the expression £0.15 - that's the same as 15p - so conversion is easy and follows exactly the same rules for decimal points that you would use for ordinary numbers.

But if you're using £'s and shillings, what does £0.15 mean? Normal rules of arithmetic would say it means 0.15 of a £ which would presumably be 3 shillings. But surely you'd want to write 3 shillings at £0.03, not as £0.15, wouldn't you? It will very quickly get very confusing. Or to take another example, how do you convert 75 shillings to £'s? If it was 75p, it would be trivial - just move the decimal point to make £0.75. But if you're working in shillings with 20 shilllings to the £, you have to actually do a calculation to convert.

Of course all of those problems can be solved. You could invent a new convention for representing shillings, and you could get people to learn the calculations. But you're still making things needlessly hard, when working in units of £ and £/100 is so much easier.

 

[si404]

But surely you'd want to write 3 shillings at £0.03, not as £0.15, wouldn't you?

Not at all - why on earth would you use a decimal place? I guess it might be because you are stuck in the 'I have this hammer, called the decimal point, and so everything must be a nail and use it' - hence why you faun over the idea that 335p can be changed to £3.35 so easily - it really doesn't matter.

And what's easier to add up in your head (the only place where the additional calculation matters):
25, 40, 55, 60, 20, 35, 85, 15
or
5, 8, 11, 12, 4, 7, 17, 3

The latter, surely, with the smaller numbers is slightly easier rather than needlessly having everything 5 times bigger? And obviously this would be far more annoying to add: 0.25, 0.40, 0.55, 0.60, 0.20, 0.35, 0.85, 0.15

It doesn't really matter that the answer is 67s rather than £3 7s, just as it doesn't matter for 335p or £3.35. The 20 times table is really easy and so you can as easily think "3 pound coins is 60s, plus 4 plus 2 plus 1 is 67s" instead of "335p is 3 pounds and 35p. 3 pound coins is £3, a 20p, a 10 and 5p is 35p". It's all a much of a muchness maths-wise. The only way it's harder is if you have learnt hundreds, tens and units and moving the decimal place, but not your 20 times table.

 

[Domh245]

And what's easier to add up in your head (the only place where the additional calculation matters):
25, 40, 55, 60, 20, 35, 85, 15
or
5, 8, 11, 12, 4, 7, 17, 3

The latter, surely, with the smaller numbers is slightly easier rather than needlessly having everything 5 times bigger? And obviously this would be far more annoying to add: 0.25, 0.40, 0.55, 0.60, 0.20, 0.35, 0.85, 0.15

The former, as just adding multiples of 5 is an awful lot easier (and repetitive) than the assortment of digits in the latter!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Not at all - why on earth would you use a decimal place?

Because it's how our notation around numbers works, and how you deal with non-whole numbers in pretty much every other domain - including most other currencies [*]. If you don't use a decimal point, then you'll have to (re-)invent some other notation that would be used only for British currency, and never used anywhere else. Far easier to have one notation and way of working that is used everywhere, rather than inventing a 2nd way just to be used in certain places.

[*] I guess with the one exception of days-hours-minutes.

 

[RichT54]

Advocates for a return to £.s.d are still using these newfangled 'Arabic' numerals, why not go the whole hog and revert to Roman numerals for even more fun with your arithmetic

 

[eMeS]

... Roman numerals ...

One thing I really do hate is the use of Roman Numerals - particularly for the dates of origin on films and similar. I think the BBC TV is the worst on this.