Penny for your martyrs

There’s an infuriatingly misreported story going around now about metrification which is implying in many cases – especially on BBC TV news, the Mail and the Guardian (via PA) – that imperial-only measurements will be allowed from now on and this is some sort of victory. They’ll spin it that way but in fact this isn’t true – it’s not a victory for imperial at all (and quite rightly so), it’s simply continuing the mandate that all tradeable goods must be either metric or dual-measure, with metric primary, beyond 2009.

That’s it. The BBC news story showing some fool of a greengrocer who sells only in imperial and then tries to say that “99% of my customers ask for measurements in imperial, so why should I go metric?” (gee, maybe because you don’t have any metric signage and probably have a metric-“martyr” sign in the window) in fact is simply pointing Trading Standards his way just as much as it would have done before this ruling.

What I found even more annoying, however, was this rather credulous quote from the Guardian’s PA reprint:

Mr Chichester said: “After saving the crown on the British pint, I am happy the Conservatives have persuaded the Commission that it is good not only for international business but for the British people that traditional measurements are kept.

“I just hope there won’t be any more need for Metric Martyrs and that the Government will avoid forcing metrication down the public’s throat.”

Mr. Chichester is, of course, a Tory MEP, so we need to translate this into English. “International business” means “the USA” (who actually use a different imperial system to ours, which they hilariously call the “English system”); “the Conservatives” means “fear of the Daily Mail”; “traditional measurements” means, well, anything; “saving the crown on the British pint” means “allowing to fill up to 568ml with foam” (Euromeasures don’t include the head, so a half-litre in most of Europe has liquid filled up to a half-litre level and then head above that; so often you’ll get more beer than a “pint” over here); and “metric martyrs” means “people stuck in the past”.

(Is it just me, by the way, or doesn’t the term “metric martyr” really grate? After all, it’s what they call themselves, which by rights should disqualify them from using it. In any case, they weren’t threatened with death, just asked to buy scales which had kg printed on them – if you were really interested in providing customer choice rather than just arrogantly imposing your ignorance, you’d have dual-measure scales anyway.)

In fact, metrication is happening anyway over time. Electronic appliances print degrees C rather than Fahrenheit or gas marks and supermarkets have switched completely for the most part (with the exception of Tesco’s 454g mince, but even that only prints the amount of grams) because most people born after the 60s actually don’t understand very much imperial – certainly I don’t, I work in metres, degrees C and Kelvin, litres and ml and kg, I print on A4. I use decimal points and scientific notation, which gives enough accuracy for anyone. I only use inches for measuring computer screen diagonals, and that’s just because it’s still printed on the box; I drink in pints because that’s what my pub sells.

Working with scientific data as I do, I don’t see how the imperial system would make any sense for anything, but it’s what people were taught for a long time and I accept that; but people haven’t been taught it for a while. This EU decision is the right one; by not forcing the time of imperial’s death, it will in fact allow it to happen quietly, as opposed to noisily when the deadline comes. It’s just a shame it’s being reported as yet another yah-boo-Europe-sucks story instead of what it really is, but then the EU is always so prone to misinterpretation.

Also on this subject: Europhobia’s fine piece.