So imperial measures will be making a come back. As far as I know they never went away. Family born long after the loss of inches and feet to the metric system all seem to measure everything in yards, feet and inches, except in  school and for exams. Weird.

Somehow I am wired into understanding  all about good old fashioned chains..... being the width of a bit of middle ages farming  strip and of course also the length between two wickets - and probably other uses I know not of. Are there other similar measures used in the world of sports? ..... Not relevant but have always been amused by the vague definition of length of a polo field...... 'About as long as you've got available,' was the clearest definition I was ever told by a chap on a horse who was waving a long hammer about.... and who became a president for  a few years  as it happened.

So now we can have the Imperial crown on a pint glass again... I never realised we ever had one before. Mark you.   people's pint glasses, as I recall in childhood, often used to have etched legends like 'The Old Ship' or 'The White Horse.' and about which one did not ask. 

So as the economy slow sinks into decay we will be doing it in mph and not kilometres. .... or possibly knots - were knots ever changed by the EU? Have never been sure of knots, if I'm honest... and me a sailing nut.

Priscilla wrote:

So imperial measures will be making a come back. As far as I know they never went away. 

Well quite, as far as I'm aware British draught beer in pubs is still sold in pints, distances to destinations are given in miles, speed restrictions are in mph, horse races are measured in furlongs, cricket pitches are in yards and it is still possible to ask for a pound of cheese, some "two by four" wood and a quarter-pounder burger. It's the same in France where people still often talk about livres (pounds, usually taken to mean half a kg), pouces (literally "thumbs" ie inches) and in bars when ordering a beer, un demi (originally un demi-pinte ie half a pint, but now usually understood to mean 250ml or a quarter of a litre). Meanwhile cut firewood for heating (what in Britain would be known as cordwood) is still universally sold by the stère rather than by weight (the stère is a cubic metre of stacked firewood and was actually one of the original measures decreed by the revolutionary government).

As with so many things it all seems to depend on how and where measures are being used. Virtually all scientific work is done in metric SI units but when it comes to industrial applications a lot depends on who the customer is. I've worked in the precious metals business and bullion is still in part weighed in troy ounces (a troy ounce is roughly 1.097 of an imperial avoirdupois ounce) while manufactured items can be a right mish-mash of units. An aerospace customer would usually have everything specified in metric, but a jewellery customer might well order a certain weight in troy ounces of, say tube, with an outside diameter in millimetres and a wall thickness in thou (thousands of an inch), and all to be in metre long cut lengths... and actually sold in £/gram.

Ultimately though whatever the units used, everyone has to be working to defined standard measures. For goods traded within the EU this means metric measures, or an agreed equivalent (such as the draught pint measure) but which nevertheless still has to be precisely defined in terms of metric units. Hence the crown symbol on pub glasses denoted that the glass contained an authorised and controlled quantity (568 ml). When it was supplemented by the CE (conformité européenne) mark, the crown mark became redundant and so the requirement to use it was removed by the British Government (not the EU). Regardless of whether Britain really does revert to using Imperial weights and measures (highly unlikely I think) any goods destined for the EU will still have to be manufactured and sold in metric units.

PS
The knot is one nautical mile per hour where a nautical mile is roughly defined as one minute of geographic latitude (bearing in mind the Earth is not a perfect sphere). It is not an SI unit but has now been defined in terms of SI units as it is still used worldwide in meteorology, and in maritime and air navigation. In French it is called a nœud (ie a knot) or un mille marin par heure (a maritime/nautical mile per hour).

Yes, well. er, mm. thanks, MM. Still do not know how fast a knot is in terms with which I am au fait. How many mph is it  - really. My understanding of nautical miles - er - also needs refreshing.  In the heady days of youth I could read nautical charts - but we once ended up on the Gunfleet sands and rescued by lifeboat and a frigate on NATO exercise - so perhaps it as never been, shall we say,  a sound skill?.

A minute of geographical latitude is what surely what land poachers take - or perhaps  when  one is overdue  in car parks.

Honestly, if people across the world cannot have identical understanding of how long a piece of string is, whar  chance of Peace? Need another pint pot of port. 
isn't it a marvel that we can function at all?

Sorry P, I just assumed you already had an intrinsic feel for what a knot was, you being a sailor an' all that.

One knot is approximately 1.151 miles per hour, 1.852 km per hour, 1.68781 feet per second, or 0.514 metres per second (assuming I've got my sums right).

PS And if aliens have already been here, you can see why they shoved off. Are other planets pure spheres or is ours being a bit out of kilter warning enough that we may have problems measuring string and knowing how fast we are going on the sea.

Oh easy - a knot is a mile and a bit per hour.......and if French a km, and a bit more of it per hour. Thank you. Perhaps i once knew this but never really needed to recall it.

In the subcontinent distance  reckoning was easy - ask anyone in rural parts and one was told how many cigarettes a place was away - with adjustments for being on foot, car or bus.

I am somewhat amazed that Boris wants to revert to the French system of weights. As he speaks (or at least quotes) Latin I would have thought "avoir du poids" would have been within his linguistic capabilities. iirc  only linear and volumetric measures were actually "Imperial".

$327 Million down the tube:

The "Gimli Glider" July 1983, video from 2018:

In NZ/Aotearoa the usual measurements are metric, but people still talk of 2 by 2s, and horse racing still uses miles and furlongs. They also talk about horses winning by so many lengths or by a nose or a head.
Tailed off means right at the back with no hope of winning.