AS LOGICAL AS AN INCH
'In these inclement days, snow levels are referred to in millimetres. It is about time that those in power, at the BBC or any other organisation, realised that, to a large proportion of the population, especially those over fifty, metric measurement is meaningless.
'What is more logical than an inch (the top section of a thumb), a foot, explanation hardly needed, and a yard, an arm's length from the nose?These can be visualised, but metric can’t. If this isnot so, why do the police, when issuing descriptionsof persons wanted, always describe them in imperial measure, for example, as 5'10" tall, and weighing 14 stone? Because this is meaningful to a large proportion of the population!! Let the European Union get on with metric, but leave our standards alone!'
Alan SheathWalsall. - this letter appeared in the Euro Realist magazine.
(And for our American readers, a 'stone' equals 14 pounds.)