Pros and cons of Imperial versus Metric

Oxford University in the UK has now decided to educate its students on the basis of the Imperial system of measurement. As you know there are two systems in use today. One is the Imperial and the other is the Metric. The Imperial is a British based system and is one of the oldest but Oxford University has decided that its students should be reminded that the Imperial system is linked to the “British Empire Colonisation”, perhaps in an effort to ensure that British students are not totally proud of its worldwide usage.

Now a lot of things have their British colonisation origins. In fact, when you think about it, any country that speaks English as a native language was once colonised by the British. These countries include Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. All these countries have their British origins and were not white originally. America had the Native Americans, Canada the Inuits and Metis, Australia the Aborigines, New Zealand the Kiwis and the South Africa the Africans. None of these countries were originally white. The non-whites were the natives who were displaced by the whites when they colonised it.

That’s not to say that the British were the only ones to colonise nations. The French did it, the Spanish did it and so did the Dutch. Any country that has French as a second language was colonised by the French and any country that has Spanish as a native language was colonised by the Spaniards. Even America, that was originally colonised by the British, is made up of so many generations going right back to Europe. There are people there of both European and Russian descent as is clear from their surnames.

I know that the two different measuring systems often are at loggerheads as to which one is the best to use in a specific situation. Some people, often the younger generation, prefer the metric system because that’s the system that they were taught in at school. The older generation, and even many in their 50s, prefer the Imperial system because that is what they were used to when they were growing up, probably because it’s been around a lot longer than the Metric system.

You see, some people can visualise the size of something if they hear its measurement in the Imperial units whereas others only if they hear it in the metric units. I personally use both systems depending upon what is being measured. For example, I can visualise the height of someone being 5ft 8inches but not when they are 190cm tall. I can also imagine the size or the build of someone if I hear they are 8st 12Ib but cannot quite fathom it if I hear they are 80kg. But on the other hand, I can imagine how heavy a 3kg bag of potatoes is likely to be.

Moreover, if both the Imperial and Metric measurement sizes fall within the range of a standard ruler, I can visualise both. Therefore, I can imagine the size of a 7 x 12 inch piece of paper as well as that of a 30 x 20cm page. But, for me, areas can get a little tricky if they are expressed in metres squared but square feet is easier to visualise. The same applies to acres as opposed to hectares. In spite of all this, it is noteworthy that even back in the 1980s, in the UK chemistry and physics classes at university levels used the Metric system to measure lengths and weights and not the Imperial system. Compounds and elements were weighed in grams and milligrams, not in 1/nth of a pound, and lengths were measured in micrometres and not in 1/nth of an inch.

In the art community, however, watercolour paper and canvas sizes are often expressed in Imperial units. I still come across artists today saying that they painted something on a half imperial sheet of watercolour paper or on a quarter imperial sheet. They are following in the footsteps of art masters of the 18th and 19th century. The system is not so useless after all and still has its uses. I hope, therefore, that the Imperial system isn’t made obsolete just because the British education community feels a sense of having done something wrong ¬– which they haven’t.