‘It makes no sense’: reaction to plan to revive imperial measurements in UK

theguardian.com:

Matt Tandy is feeling the pressure. He may be the manager of a fabric and craft shop, but he’s also only 26 years old. As such, being asked whether he thinks three yards is longer or shorter than 2.5 metres is causing him undue stress.

“This is the one I need to get right, don’t I?” he says before sighing with relief when his answer – three yards is in fact longer – is correct. Nearby, a shopper more advanced in years smirks at Tandy’s hesitancy.

His anxiety may soon be mirrored by much of the nation, with Boris Johnson reported to be planning to revive the use of imperial measurements. The UK currently uses a mix of imperial and metric measurements – think miles per hour but litres of petrol – but the former is fast becoming a memory for younger Britons.

Tandy, the manager of Abakhan in Shrewsbury town centre, is nonplussed by the idea of going back to imperial. Considering he is too young to remember quarters of sweets or fruit by the pound though, he does very well in the Guardian’s imperial v metric quiz, only failing to guess that a pint of lager is more than 550ml.

Chris Carter, 45 is enjoying a pint of lager in the sunshine nearby. Despite his choice of drink, he wrongly thinks a pint is 545ml when in fact it is 568ml in the UK. He fares better, however, on the questions about distance and height.

The idea of a reintroduction is “nonsense”, he says. “Why change something that works? It makes no sense. You’re going to have all the school kids that have learned the metric system who then have to switch over to old imperial measurements.”

Carter, who voted Conservative in the last election, thinks there is one reason and one reason only that Johnson is bringing the change in: “He’s taking a stab in the dark to try to cover