We use a mixture of both in the UK somethings we use metric, somethings we use imperial we use kilo and grams for weights as well as pounds and ounces. Liquids are both litres and pints, depending on what you're buying, if you go to a pub you'll ask for a pint of beer, in shops labels tend to have metric these days.
Britain befuddled me as an Aussie when I first moved there. Australia uses metric pretty much universally and I found it weird how speed was imperial, temperature Celsius, pint of beer and milk, litre of orange juice etc
@@Evasion381 haha yeah but the government doesn’t mandate things like measurements for drinks at tesco! Why do I buy a half pint of milk and a litre of orange juice? They could use whichever they want but they choose to be different for some reason
Pound to the USA is somewhere you lock up cars Pound = 240 Pence OR 100 New Pence Pound = 20 Shillings/Florins/Bobs, 4 Crowns or 8 Half Crowns(2'6p) Pound = 16 ounces Half a Pound = Ten Bob Note or 8 ounces or a 50p Coin Brits like to save energy and use the same word for many different terms, it keeps schools running longer trying to explain and it fills up the Dictionary having to write multiple versions of a single word. It is simple logic
This clip is from a pre tour warm up where he does bits of his set at the comedy stores around London seeing what works and what doesn't, thats why you've seen bits of it already
Officially we are metric in the UK, but we still use a lot of imperial measurement. You would think it's confusing but it's not. I did some wood work the other day and I cut some wood 15cm x 10 inches.
When the pilgrims took the imperial system from Britain to America they took the Queen Anne imperial system. In 1824 the British imperial system was changed slightly, making Tons 2240lbs (long tons) the 2000lb ton hence-forth being called a short ton. Also changed was the pint which changed from 16 to 20 fluid ounces, hence why the imperial gallon at that time also became larger that the US gallon.
@@SoupDragonish If a US mile is shorter then your mph, miles per hour, is an exaggeration. That means US vehicles are SLOWER than UK vehicles. Wow, you DON'T drive as fast as you think you do so UK is FASTER than the USA? After all these years you have a massive amount of catching up to do in the USA?
weve been used to it for decades. Im 36 and past using miles on the roads, or the fact my 30cm ruler at school had onches on the other side, I have no idea what imperial units are, what is a lb or an oz, or how many go into eachother, no idea how long a yard is, never been taught any of it.... Britain is metric... weve just got pensioners with their rose tinted specs and frothing nationalists like jacob rees mogg who would rather hold on to an antiquated system because "Britain invented it", than embrace a much better system that the French invented. When JRM became leader of the house of commons, he sent a memo demanding all future correspondance in the house only used imperial measurements.... Noone in Britain has been taught imperial measures since the 1960s, so every worker in the house under the age of 60 had to start learning to convert simple metric measurements to conveluded imperial ones to satisfy the minister for the 18th century. Edit: Sorry for the rant... the state of this country and our out of touch leaders just really pisses me off and the refusal to scrap imperial is the perfect analogy to the nationalists clinging on to the past!
In the UK its not a case of using one or the other, Imperial or Metric. Each have their pro's and con's. So in the UK most are happy to use both systems in everyday life.
It isn't a joke about being the centre of the world, he is factually correct the 0 line of longitude runs straight through Britain but as he also says we put it there.
Greatly enjoying your reactions to both Al Murray and Sarah Millikan. Please keep them coming. In regard to Al I highly recommend his videos What every parent should know, along with All jobs are terrible, and not forgetting his great take on National Anthems. You might also want to have a look at the very dry and sometimes angry humour of David Mitchel. A good starting point for him might be is podcasts David Mitchell's Soapbox. In this his takes on, A mouse in my house and also Unusually good looking men, are excellent as are many others.
Nick, I am sure I mentioned it ages ago, but the UK officially became metric in the 1960s. The old monetary system was decimalized, so kilograms and litre replaced lbs, ounces, pints, etc. Then you had kids born in the 1960s to early 1980s who had parents brought up in the old system, so we got taught both (metric at school, imperial at home). The generation after that were only taught metric and their parents will have been brought up with metric, so they have very little understanding of yards, acres, etc. The reason why the UK still has imperial measurements is because the EU forced them to become metric in the first place, so it was pushback to resist changing everything. A real stubbornness by the older folk to give Europe the middle finger, I never had a problem using either system (apart from Fahrenheit) and miles and mph are easier than kilometres for me, i understand lbs easily, saying I am 6' 5" is what comes to mind before 1.96m, etc, but fluid ounces, gallons, etc are not natural at all and I need to convert (used to have to do the math, now use a website). Also confusing is that your fluid measurements are smaller than the old British ones. A US pint is smaller than a UK pint.
Fyi the middle would not be used by older people they flag people (two fingers) middle finger is an yankee thing as for imperial not taught in schools it is always as been (yes only touched on but still taught) yes young people don’t understand imperial from weights Easy to fluid Gil’s,pint’s,gallons,firkin,kilikin,hog’s head and barrel or length with barley corn, inch , foot , yard , rod/chain depending on which part of British isles furlong and mile and league and lot’s more fyi decimalisation was brought in by the Uk government to increase revenue (when you pay tax they round up when they rebate they round down ) the also abolished the half penny to increase revenue so don’t blame the EEC this is incorrect same as straight bananas and all the over crap peddled by right wing media (fun fact they now are trying to abolish the ECHR influence on the Uk this is a good thing since it was introduced by that evil racist winston Churchill to stop facism fact) fun fact it’s called great because it is geographically the largest island in the British archipelago
Of course, you know the bit about the EU forcing metric is bollocks, right? "Britain was NOT forced to adopt metric by the European Union. The myth has been widely repeated in the British news media and by anti-EU politicians. It simply does not stand up to an examination of the facts. In the mid 1960s, British industry and the government were concerned about our continued use of old-fashioned (non-decimal) currency and measurement units. The government decided to reform both currency and measurement units, announcing its intention to convert to metric in 1965. This was at a time when accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) seemed very remote. The UK joined the EEC in 1973 along with Ireland and Denmark."
I`m English.... I use miles per hour, I weigh 11stone ish ! I have my sat nav to miles and yet I measure DIY jobs in Centimeters ! we just did`nt really totally switch over. I think the younger gen use metric more but my son (15) is used to Miles still so when he learns to drive, he will drive imperial !. All our speed sings are in MPH so it will not die within the next gen.
It's pretty much a hybrid system here in the UK-official and customary combined, well that's the way I've been taught. Therefore it's easier to switch between the two.
US gallons are different to Imperial gallons. From Quora, "The US had “opted out” of the British Empire prior to 1824, when Imperial measure was introduced. The US liquid gallon is the former Queen Anne wine gallon defined as 231 cubic inches."
America signed up for the Metric (French) system a long time ago. However, it uses the Imperial (British Empire) system in normal use. If you are doing a maths (not math, I'm British) job or an American scientist, you have to use the Metric system. That is now enforced because the Americans crashed expensive probes into Mars and other places because they programmed the probes in Imperial, and Britain and other countries were using the International Metric system. The French invented the Metric system because they wanted a standard, but knew no other country would adopt it because they were French. So they measured (people actually walked it) from the Equator to the North Pole, and used that as their standard. One Metre is the distance divided by 10,000,000. We still use the Imperial system in Britian, but can happily flip between the two. Good video and reaction by the way.
Yeah as a country we can be confusing. We use pints for beer or Milk. Though our pints are bigger. We use litres for fuel, petrol but work out miles per gallon and sooooo on
I already told Nasty Nick and Goofy Gabe that the US got the measurement system from the UK, but they were too busy ranting about rain and baseball to notice.
The difference is that Brits know more about the world than Americans, on average! The UK uses both metric and imperial weights and measures systems. Global flexible UK.
As a Brit in his 50s, my Dad used Imperial and taught me imperial, but my school taught me Metric, we now use both in the UK and I can easily switch between the 2 and can do the conversions in my head, I think using both systems is better, it just seems right.... BTW, Al Murray is a very intelligent man who has a degree in History from Oxford, his Landlord persona is his comedy platform. Great reaction guys. 👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
When we changed over from gallons to litres, the prices in the shops went up, especially petrol and diesel. The same happened with decimalisation back in the 70's.
As an older person and my parents owned a grocery shop (mini supermarket) before metric was introduced in schools in the UK (I think metric was introduced in 1965 but schools generally waited until 71 when metric money was made the currency, the US has metric currency and always has so far as I'm aware, certainly long enough for no one to be left behind when teaching it). So I was pretty much used to imperial units when metric was introduced, it took some getting used to (I didn't like school) but as you were saying about everything being so much easier to work out in metric, I totally agree with the exception of division as Al pointed out, but there would be less need for it if everything was metric. What many people don't realise is this, A Kilogram is 1000 grams A litre is 1000 millilitres 1 millilitre of water weighs 1 gram, so whatever amount of water you have you automatically know the weight in Kilograms if its over 1000, buying fuel by weight is a foolish way but is perfectly possible in metric. The Kilometer is 1000 metres and a Meter is 1000 millimetres (there is the centimeter in between for convenience a little bit like the foot in imperial, they are there to make both systems less wieldy nothing more, but yes I agree with you that metric makes far more sense than what we have, though as I'm older fewer people here are using imperial measurements for obvious reasons, I see myself as one of the lucky ones because I can use both interchangeably and often combine them to come up with some strange arsed weights and measurements. Sorry for the long ramble :/
The base 10 of the dollar is why Canada, Australia and New Zealand all use dollars. The Pound Sterling system prior to metrication was just crazy complicated.
@@SoupDragonish It wasn't complicated if that is what you had grown up with, as a three year old I knew how many pennies there were in a shilling, half crown, crown, pound and guinea, I have no need for those now but I still remember them, it's only complicated for people seeing those things now because they didn't grow up learning about them, the thing is that adjusting to base ten was hardly a problem, but both made perfect sense to me and still do.
He wasn't joking, the line of longitude does run through Britain. So we are the centre of the world. That is why the world runs to GMT. Which is in England. As a former teacher I would of thought you should know this.
We didn’t think he was joking. We just laughed at how he said England created it. We don’t teach geography. I teach reading, writing, and language and Nick teaches all subjects but at a 10 year old level, so no geography yet. America isn’t the best at teaching geography unless you are the one teacher in the school who teaches it to one grade. I only learned world geography in my first year of high school and that was it. I’m not saying it’s right or okay, it just is what it is.
It cost Sweden and Canada a fortune when we went metric , all our sheet material (plywood ) and lumber ( lengths of timber ) changed size as their machines where set up to cut imperial sizes not metric 8x4 sheets of ply became 1200 x 2400 I’m a builder and work in mm not the bigger cm 4x2 became 100x50mm 2x2 became 50x50mm etc
I think you would both enjoy reacting to Armstrong & Miller - Fighter Pilots . . . a few short clips put together in a compilation video of about 12-15 mins or so in length. Set in WW2 - but they're mainly using the more modern day youth slang culture when talking on them . . . brilliant comedy!
At Primary school in the UK in the 70s we only learnt metric as our teachers were convinced imperial would soon die. So to this day I'm STILL confused by how many pounds there are in a stone, or how many ounces in a pound or feet in a yard etc etc. I'd be extremely happy to go full metric and only have to remember "10" for everything - SO much more sensible! :-)
The UK is metric, but there are a few things that hang on such as pints. Older people might use a combination of metric and imperial, but this will be gone really within 10-20 years
Science based work now always uses the Metric System. When I was at college in the 1960s doing engineering, the use of the MKS system for ALL scientific study was 'natural' to me.
The UK introduced the metric system in 1965 and todays youngsters have little to no knowledge of what came before. Those of us who are old enough still prefer the Imperial system in some circumstances, such as weights and measures, or distance. We still mark our road signs in miles and MPH rather than Kilometers and KPH. We also still weigh in ounces, pounds and stones although our law says we have to show the metric equivalent on food packaging. People still ask for a pound of bacon, sausage, beef etc rather than 0.4536Kg. A question came up at my brothers recently, and he and I came up with the answer at the same time, except that I gave the Imperial result and he the Metric. It was quite funny. The biggest difference in the US and UK measurements is that a pint or gallon in the US is smaller than the UK, the US pint being 16 fl oz and the UK being 20 fl oz. This makes the UK gallon equal to 2 US pints bigger
people were getting fines in the uk for continuing using the imperial system ie independent greengrocers and market stalls, this was about 20 years ago don't know if it's still the case now
Our monetary system went decimal in 1971, becoming just Pounds and Pence ( £p), with 100 pence equalling £1. Before then it was Pounds, shillings and pence ( £sd ). The £sd derived from the Romans - Libra, Solidus, Denarius - libra translated as pound, which is why we still use lb to denote a pound weight. However there was much more to the currency than that. There were 12 pennies in 1 shilling, 20 shillings in £1 and 21 shillings in 1 guinea, but our coinage contained one penny coins along with 3 penny, 6 penny, one shilling, two shillings, two and a half shillings, and quarter and half pennies as well. Over the years these gained names, much like cents, nickels and dimes. 1/4d was a farthing, 1/2d was a halfpenny or hap'ny, 1d was just a penny, 3d was thruppence or a threp'ny bit, 6d was sixpence or a tanner, 12d was a shilling or bob, 24d was a florin or two bob, and 30d was a half-crown. Our notes started with ten bob or half a pound, then up through £1, £5, £10, £20. After decimalisation we started with 1/4 and 1/2p coins but eventually phased these out. We were then left with 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, £2 coins and £5, £10, £20, £50 notes.
I worked in a massive London Department Store on that D DAY and it was chaos with the Old Ladies trying to convert 240 Old Pennies and £1. Luckily. Maths is my forte but I still remember that Saturday Morning when I was paid £1.50 to work from 9am-1pm as a Relief worker as I continued at weekends for a year after my first Summer job, in between School Hoidays.
We use what ever tends to be easier to work with many old school trades will use imperial as that's what they've used since day one and it's easier for them to calculate
A few hundred years ago people called the UK Great Britain to identify it from Brittany a place on the north coast of France and is small.....so....Brit-tiny and Great Britain.......OK?? love watching you two.
In the UK we had the metric system thrust upon us when we were in the EU; now it would be difficult th change back as young people, under 40 for example, don't know what feet and inches, ounces and pounds are. I am a bit shocked that two people who are teachers, and have even taught math(s) don't seem to know what the systen in the UK is.
UK uses both metric and Imperial. The obvious difference between Imperial and Customary is that your gallon is smaller. Which is why you don't get as good gas mileage.
Stupidly here in the UK we have been slowly changing from imperial to metric, seriously it is the dumbest thing. I was in junior school in 1969 when we were given new metric rulers,weights and measures. But even now we have speed signs still in mph, yet when we get fuel it’s in priced and pumped in litres, My height is on my passport as 188cm but I’m 6ft 2’ when I go in a pub I get a pint of Guinness go to a pharmacy and it’s milligrams in my job it’s all metric we have youngsters (anyone under thirty) all metric. Anyone over it’s both systems, weird. but when travelling in Australia all metric they changed and it was a done deal.
As many have commented, we use both. but as time goes by metric will take over. I was born in 1960. educated with both systems. I am an engineer. I find if I'm guessing (estimating) I use imperial, if want to be accurate I use metric. What puzzles me is why the Americans ended up with their own version of imperial. we have 20 fluid ounces to a pint and 8 pints to a gallon. Also there 2240 pounds to a ton. The international scientific community uses metric. you can't fight it forever!!!
We were supposed to go metric 50 years ago. However, we are still only half and half. The trouble with metric is that you cannot visualise it. Anybody can visualise a foot.
If you teach both systems and how to convert from one to the other you improve basic arithmetic. When Britain changed its currency people converted from decimal to sterling to understand the real cost. Hence it improved there arithmetical skills.
You have addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, trigonometry, statistics, calculus - all different branches of mathematics, which is why we say Maths and not Math in the UK.
Rule of thumb length of thumb from tip to first joint =1 inch.Logical. Hands in Horse measurement. Also just a random fact the length from elbow to wrist same as your foot length toe to heel.
England is metric when we want to be. We are only metric in theory and in school. We use a weird hybrid of the two in everday life. We buy milk in pints in bottles but in litres in cartons. fizzy drinks are in litres. We weigh in stones but the doctors weigh us in kilos. You can buy lengths of material in centimetres or yards so whatever we wish.. Heights are ft and ins at home metres and centimetres at the doctors. We switch one to the other in a typically eccentric fashion. By the way I still know that 22 yards make one chain, 10 chains make 1 furlong, 8 furlongs 1 mile. Yet we have I hectare (2.47 acres) of land. However if it was 2.5 acres we would probably call it that. Yes its messed up. But thats the way we do it.
the Imperial System is a British system, British settlers took the system to the 13 colonies with them. there is a reason the output on your air conditioners are set in BTU's ( British Thermal Units) we do use metric and imperial interchangeably, its been 70 years since we officially adopted metric and we still only use it around 40-50% of the time, roads are in miles height in feet and inches weight in stone pounds and ounces we still buy milk and beer in pints etc. we have the best of both worlds. for example its much easier to build a house in millimetres and centimetres but if anyone told you their height in the same measurements 99.999% of people wouldn't have a clue
Your "customary" measuring system is officially defined in metric terms. for example, an inch is defined as 24mm. A gallon would be defined as 3.785 litres. So, we can say that America does use the metric system in a highly illogical way
You guys should have a go at the old money uk used before we went metric in the 70s, we now have 100 pennies in a pound Stirling similar to 100 cents in a dollar but we use to have 240 pennies in a pound before we went decimal.
The majority of English measurements are now Metric. We do still use a handfull of imperial units, and our roads are still signposted for miles, but schools have only taught metric since the 1960s. Metric is by far the better system.
Canada uses the metric system, even with speed' but some of the think they are French. In England we mix them. Oh an English pint is more than an American one.
Imperial measures are based on simple to guestimate. an inch is the size of a thumb, a foot is the size of the kings foot, a yard is the length of a mans arm. etc. you can see the problem the kings foot in England was differrent to the Kings foot in France, but it is easy it imagine. Metric is more precise and in the scientific space age easier to understandand mathematically and more accurate. the imperial measurments differ in US/UK a pint is 20floz in UK compared to 16floz in US, therefor a US gallon (8 pints) is smaller than a UK gallon.
The government says we must use metric and we can handle that but people still use imperial. Ask a person their height or weight and they will answer in Imperial, distances in miles.
Britain is officially metric, but we hang o to imperial stuff now and again. We use miles for road signs, but that's about it as far as officialdom is concerned.
The metric system is easier but is that a good thing ? Fractions are being forgotten and mental arithmetics are not practised. The only reason for the metric system is for calculators as people find it difficult to convert from Imperial to metric.
You make a good point. As someone who loves math, I don’t have an issue with the Customary system. But like I mentioned in the video, as a teacher who teaches converting units in the same system, it’s hard to help the students understand in the very short time we have to teach it.
Only Three Countries in the World (Officially) Still Use the Imperial System The U.S. Myanmar and Liberia so just third world countries then! UK has been metric for years and the U.S uses metric for a lot things.
did you know that USA hold one of the two 1kg master weights the other is France and imperial is then converted from that 1kg master. so USA is part metric
The divisibility of 12 was the basis of the old £ which was made up of 240 pence in 20 shillings of 12 pence worth each. I recently learned that our pints are bigger than yours, which is odd. It's probably why we don't sell or buy milk or drinks in gallons or ounces, just in pints, up to 6 pints in a big family bottle of milk. Our measuring jugs will have two sets of markings down the side, one for fluid ounces up to 2 pints, and one in litre and millilitre. Cans of drinks are in millilitres for some reason, and the petrol stations went from gallons to litres in the 1990s for some reason, probably to do with the EU. We're being metricized by stealth over decades, with every few years another commodity or rule switching. I can't tell if it's corporate driven or governmental, but either way we don't get a say about it.
You use the imperial system you may have called something else. it doesn't really matter. We went to the matric system when we joined Eurpen Common Market, but yet we still use pints for milk and Beer and Miles, so we are kind of a bit mixed up 1973 and some are still using the old measurements engineering science is using the matrix system totally 😉
"it's hard to change an entire nation to using metric" And yet every country on the planet has managed it somehow, with the exception of 3... Your country "chose to go to the moon because it was hard", but changing over to metric is apparently too hard?
Sexagesimal (used thousands of years ago) would be better, as it was based on the 60's system and is more divisible. That's why we have 360 degrees, 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour; plus 12 and 24 hours. However, now we use the Decimal system as we have ten fingers, and people are generally stupid.
I'm a designer in the construction industry, all of my CAD drawings are done in metric due to code and standards. The stupid thing is, nearly all steel and timber construction materials are still manufactured to imperial sizes. This means the drawing will call for a 305mm steel beam but the stockists will sell it as a 12" beam. The guys on site and I will also convert everything to imperial on the fly when discussing the job. It doesn't cause any problems though because it is second nature to most Brits (we were taught both systems when I went to school).
When I started work in 1963 we had a mechanical calculator and used LSD (240 pennies to the pound). We had to convert to decimal so an old penny was .00416667, a shilling was .05 and multiples of these. For example 1/8d (one shilling and eight pence) was .08333333333. with usage it becomes second nature and I have never forgotten. The mechanical calculator was good exercise but noisy.
Your maths is slightly off when you say 2000lbs to a ton. A ton is 20 cwt(hundredwieght) and a hundredweight is 112 lb therefore a ton is 2240 lbs. 2000lbs is a METRIC Tonne.
There is no argument that metric system is better than the imperial system and against i'm sure the will of the nation the metric system started to appear in the public domain from circa 1971. Today we are virtually 100% a metric nation albeit we still navigate in miles and travel at MPH, cars economy is still largely calculated in MPG strangely this is accepted by the younger generations who were only ever taught the metric system. Metric system works well and easy to calculate however when values need to be put into perspective then it's quite common for values and dimensions to be mentally recalculated in to imperial values to gains some sort of feel as to the true size or value of whatever is presented before you. To say America is to big a nation to change to the superior metric system is the same flawed excuse that America could never control stricter gun regulations. It just takes positive legislation that covers all states and the will of the nation to follow it through.
Liverpool is my best city going I live 1 hour away by sea but support Liverpool football team so go there alot ,you'd love it n scouse is awesome n people are too
Sorry but now I have a question. I work with people from your side of the pond and never worked out why you call thousandths of an inch mills? Educate me 🙂
We use a mixture of both in the UK somethings we use metric, somethings we use imperial we use kilo and grams for weights as well as pounds and ounces. Liquids are both litres and pints, depending on what you're buying, if you go to a pub you'll ask for a pint of beer, in shops labels tend to have metric these days.
You missed Stones and pounds for weight as well.
For American readers.
There are 14 pounds in a Stone.
Britain befuddled me as an Aussie when I first moved there. Australia uses metric pretty much universally and I found it weird how speed was imperial, temperature Celsius, pint of beer and milk, litre of orange juice etc
@@goldboy150 as a rule of thumb if it costs the government money to change it's ok how it is, everything else pretty much had to change lmao
@@Evasion381 haha yeah but the government doesn’t mandate things like measurements for drinks at tesco! Why do I buy a half pint of milk and a litre of orange juice? They could use whichever they want but they choose to be different for some reason
Pound to the USA is somewhere you lock up cars
Pound = 240 Pence OR 100 New Pence
Pound = 20 Shillings/Florins/Bobs, 4 Crowns or 8 Half Crowns(2'6p)
Pound = 16 ounces
Half a Pound = Ten Bob Note or 8 ounces or a 50p Coin
Brits like to save energy and use the same word for many different terms, it keeps schools running longer trying to explain and it fills up the Dictionary having to write multiple versions of a single word.
It is simple logic
This clip is from a pre tour warm up where he does bits of his set at the comedy stores around London seeing what works and what doesn't, thats why you've seen bits of it already
We use both systems in the uk. Pop is sold in litres and beer in pints. It makes sense to us😂
Officially we are metric in the UK, but we still use a lot of imperial measurement. You would think it's confusing but it's not. I did some wood work the other day and I cut some wood 15cm x 10 inches.
I built a workbench for my new shed in the summer , its 5ft x 62cm
Haha love it
It is confusing. I learnt Imperial and when I left school we went metric.
When the pilgrims took the imperial system from Britain to America they took the Queen Anne imperial system. In 1824 the British imperial system was changed slightly, making Tons 2240lbs (long tons) the 2000lb ton hence-forth being called a short ton. Also changed was the pint which changed from 16 to 20 fluid ounces, hence why the imperial gallon at that time also became larger that the US gallon.
The US mile is slightly shorter than the UK mile. The US gallon is considerably smaller than the UK gallon.
@@SoupDragonish If a US mile is shorter then your mph, miles per hour, is an exaggeration. That means US vehicles are SLOWER than UK vehicles. Wow, you DON'T drive as fast as you think you do so UK is FASTER than the USA? After all these years you have a massive amount of catching up to do in the USA?
@@trevorhart545 I think it was to make Texas look bigger.
Great reaction both of you, keep em coming 👍👏🏻👏🏻😁👍🇬🇧
Thanks. We will.
Metric was introduced in 1965 with a plan to get rid of imperial by 1975 but we're still getting used to it.
weve been used to it for decades. Im 36 and past using miles on the roads, or the fact my 30cm ruler at school had onches on the other side, I have no idea what imperial units are, what is a lb or an oz, or how many go into eachother, no idea how long a yard is, never been taught any of it.... Britain is metric... weve just got pensioners with their rose tinted specs and frothing nationalists like jacob rees mogg who would rather hold on to an antiquated system because "Britain invented it", than embrace a much better system that the French invented.
When JRM became leader of the house of commons, he sent a memo demanding all future correspondance in the house only used imperial measurements.... Noone in Britain has been taught imperial measures since the 1960s, so every worker in the house under the age of 60 had to start learning to convert simple metric measurements to conveluded imperial ones to satisfy the minister for the 18th century.
Edit: Sorry for the rant... the state of this country and our out of touch leaders just really pisses me off and the refusal to scrap imperial is the perfect analogy to the nationalists clinging on to the past!
In the UK its not a case of using one or the other, Imperial or Metric. Each have their pro's and con's. So in the UK most are happy to use both systems in everyday life.
It isn't a joke about being the centre of the world, he is factually correct the 0 line of longitude runs straight through Britain but as he also says we put it there.
There was a convention with representatives from other countries and the UK was picked as to the location.
Greatly enjoying your reactions to both Al Murray and Sarah Millikan. Please keep them coming. In regard to Al I highly recommend his videos What every parent should know, along with All jobs are terrible, and not forgetting his great take on National Anthems. You might also want to have a look at the very dry and sometimes angry humour of David Mitchel. A good starting point for him might be is podcasts David Mitchell's Soapbox. In this his takes on, A mouse in my house and also Unusually good looking men, are excellent as are many others.
I live in New Zealand and although Imperial is our main system we grow up learning both
That’s interesting!
Nick, I am sure I mentioned it ages ago, but the UK officially became metric in the 1960s. The old monetary system was decimalized, so kilograms and litre replaced lbs, ounces, pints, etc. Then you had kids born in the 1960s to early 1980s who had parents brought up in the old system, so we got taught both (metric at school, imperial at home). The generation after that were only taught metric and their parents will have been brought up with metric, so they have very little understanding of yards, acres, etc. The reason why the UK still has imperial measurements is because the EU forced them to become metric in the first place, so it was pushback to resist changing everything. A real stubbornness by the older folk to give Europe the middle finger,
I never had a problem using either system (apart from Fahrenheit) and miles and mph are easier than kilometres for me, i understand lbs easily, saying I am 6' 5" is what comes to mind before 1.96m, etc, but fluid ounces, gallons, etc are not natural at all and I need to convert (used to have to do the math, now use a website). Also confusing is that your fluid measurements are smaller than the old British ones. A US pint is smaller than a UK pint.
Fyi the middle would not be used by older people they flag people (two fingers) middle finger is an yankee thing as for imperial not taught in schools it is always as been (yes only touched on but still taught) yes young people don’t understand imperial from weights Easy to fluid Gil’s,pint’s,gallons,firkin,kilikin,hog’s head and barrel or length with barley corn, inch , foot , yard , rod/chain depending on which part of British isles furlong and mile and league and lot’s more fyi decimalisation was brought in by the Uk government to increase revenue (when you pay tax they round up when they rebate they round down ) the also abolished the half penny to increase revenue so don’t blame the EEC this is incorrect same as straight bananas and all the over crap peddled by right wing media (fun fact they now are trying to abolish the ECHR influence on the Uk this is a good thing since it was introduced by that evil racist winston Churchill to stop facism fact) fun fact it’s called great because it is geographically the largest island in the British archipelago
Of course, you know the bit about the EU forcing metric is bollocks, right?
"Britain was NOT forced to adopt metric by the European Union. The myth has been widely repeated in the British news media and by anti-EU politicians. It simply does not stand up to an examination of the facts.
In the mid 1960s, British industry and the government were concerned about our continued use of old-fashioned (non-decimal) currency and measurement units. The government decided to reform both currency and measurement units, announcing its intention to convert to metric in 1965. This was at a time when accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) seemed very remote. The UK joined the EEC in 1973 along with Ireland and Denmark."
I`m English.... I use miles per hour, I weigh 11stone ish ! I have my sat nav to miles and yet I measure DIY jobs in Centimeters ! we just did`nt really totally switch over. I think the younger gen use metric more but my son (15) is used to Miles still so when he learns to drive, he will drive imperial !. All our speed sings are in MPH so it will not die within the next gen.
It's pretty much a hybrid system here in the UK-official and customary combined, well that's the way I've been taught. Therefore it's easier to switch between the two.
Great fun sharing this with you both. 🙂
US gallons are different to Imperial gallons. From Quora, "The US had “opted out” of the British Empire prior to 1824, when Imperial measure was introduced. The US liquid gallon is the former Queen Anne wine gallon defined as 231 cubic inches."
Queen Anne like a tipple then?! Thats a big glass!!
America signed up for the Metric (French) system a long time ago. However, it uses the Imperial (British Empire) system in normal use. If you are doing a maths (not math, I'm British) job or an American scientist, you have to use the Metric system. That is now enforced because the Americans crashed expensive probes into Mars and other places because they programmed the probes in Imperial, and Britain and other countries were using the International Metric system.
The French invented the Metric system because they wanted a standard, but knew no other country would adopt it because they were French. So they measured (people actually walked it) from the Equator to the North Pole, and used that as their standard. One Metre is the distance divided by 10,000,000. We still use the Imperial system in Britian, but can happily flip between the two.
Good video and reaction by the way.
He is so clever. I have seen this show in another venue and it is word for word the same.
Yeah as a country we can be confusing. We use pints for beer or Milk. Though our pints are bigger. We use litres for fuel, petrol but work out miles per gallon and sooooo on
I think you just summed up the UK JP! 🙂
@@InformingChoices I find it easy, just people from outside the UK may not.
I already told Nasty Nick and Goofy Gabe that the US got the measurement system from the UK, but they were too busy ranting about rain and baseball to notice.
The difference is that Brits know more about the world than Americans, on average! The UK uses both metric and imperial weights and measures systems. Global flexible UK.
As a Brit in his 50s, my Dad used Imperial and taught me imperial, but my school taught me Metric, we now use both in the UK and I can easily switch between the 2 and can do the conversions in my head, I think using both systems is better, it just seems right....
BTW, Al Murray is a very intelligent man who has a degree in History from Oxford, his Landlord persona is his comedy platform.
Great reaction guys. 👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
When we changed over from gallons to litres, the prices in the shops went up, especially petrol and diesel.
The same happened with decimalisation back in the 70's.
As an older person and my parents owned a grocery shop (mini supermarket) before metric was introduced in schools in the UK (I think metric was introduced in 1965 but schools generally waited until 71 when metric money was made the currency, the US has metric currency and always has so far as I'm aware, certainly long enough for no one to be left behind when teaching it).
So I was pretty much used to imperial units when metric was introduced, it took some getting used to (I didn't like school) but as you were saying about everything being so much easier to work out in metric, I totally agree with the exception of division as Al pointed out, but there would be less need for it if everything was metric.
What many people don't realise is this,
A Kilogram is 1000 grams
A litre is 1000 millilitres
1 millilitre of water weighs 1 gram, so whatever amount of water you have you automatically know the weight in Kilograms if its over 1000, buying fuel by weight is a foolish way but is perfectly possible in metric.
The Kilometer is 1000 metres and a Meter is 1000 millimetres (there is the centimeter in between for convenience a little bit like the foot in imperial, they are there to make both systems less wieldy nothing more, but yes I agree with you that metric makes far more sense than what we have, though as I'm older fewer people here are using imperial measurements for obvious reasons, I see myself as one of the lucky ones because I can use both interchangeably and often combine them to come up with some strange arsed weights and measurements.
Sorry for the long ramble :/
The base 10 of the dollar is why Canada, Australia and New Zealand all use dollars.
The Pound Sterling system prior to metrication was just crazy complicated.
@@SoupDragonish It wasn't complicated if that is what you had grown up with, as a three year old I knew how many pennies there were in a shilling, half crown, crown, pound and guinea, I have no need for those now but I still remember them, it's only complicated for people seeing those things now because they didn't grow up learning about them, the thing is that adjusting to base ten was hardly a problem, but both made perfect sense to me and still do.
uk pint=568ml, us pint=475ml
He wasn't joking, the line of longitude does run through Britain. So we are the centre of the world. That is why the world runs to GMT. Which is in England. As a former teacher I would of thought you should know this.
We didn’t think he was joking. We just laughed at how he said England created it. We don’t teach geography. I teach reading, writing, and language and Nick teaches all subjects but at a 10 year old level, so no geography yet. America isn’t the best at teaching geography unless you are the one teacher in the school who teaches it to one grade. I only learned world geography in my first year of high school and that was it. I’m not saying it’s right or okay, it just is what it is.
It cost Sweden and Canada a fortune when we went metric , all our sheet material (plywood ) and lumber ( lengths of timber ) changed size as their machines where set up to cut imperial sizes not metric
8x4 sheets of ply became 1200 x 2400 I’m a builder and work in mm not the bigger cm
4x2 became 100x50mm
2x2 became 50x50mm etc
Love you guys, always.
Thanks.
I think you would both enjoy reacting to Armstrong & Miller - Fighter Pilots . . . a few short clips put together in a compilation video of about 12-15 mins or so in length. Set in WW2 - but they're mainly using the more modern day youth slang culture when talking on them . . . brilliant comedy!
At Primary school in the UK in the 70s we only learnt metric as our teachers were convinced imperial would soon die. So to this day I'm STILL confused by how many pounds there are in a stone, or how many ounces in a pound or feet in a yard etc etc. I'd be extremely happy to go full metric and only have to remember "10" for everything - SO much more sensible! :-)
The UK is metric, but there are a few things that hang on such as pints. Older people might use a combination of metric and imperial, but this will be gone really within 10-20 years
1\16" plus 3\4" plus 7\16" equals god knows what. I love the metric ten base system.
We use a mix of both, depends on what you're measuring and even what generation you're from.
Science based work now always uses the Metric System. When I was at college in the 1960s doing engineering, the use of the MKS system for ALL scientific study was 'natural' to me.
The UK introduced the metric system in 1965 and todays youngsters have little to no knowledge of what came before. Those of us who are old enough still prefer the Imperial system in some circumstances, such as weights and measures, or distance. We still mark our road signs in miles and MPH rather than Kilometers and KPH. We also still weigh in ounces, pounds and stones although our law says we have to show the metric equivalent on food packaging. People still ask for a pound of bacon, sausage, beef etc rather than 0.4536Kg. A question came up at my brothers recently, and he and I came up with the answer at the same time, except that I gave the Imperial result and he the Metric. It was quite funny.
The biggest difference in the US and UK measurements is that a pint or gallon in the US is smaller than the UK, the US pint being 16 fl oz and the UK being 20 fl oz. This makes the UK gallon equal to 2 US pints bigger
people were getting fines in the uk for continuing using the imperial system ie independent greengrocers and market stalls, this was about 20 years ago don't know if it's still the case now
We use both systems in everyday life in Britain, we switch fluently between both with ease
Our monetary system went decimal in 1971, becoming just Pounds and Pence ( £p), with 100 pence equalling £1. Before then it was Pounds, shillings and pence ( £sd ). The £sd derived from the Romans - Libra, Solidus, Denarius - libra translated as pound, which is why we still use lb to denote a pound weight. However there was much more to the currency than that. There were 12 pennies in 1 shilling, 20 shillings in £1 and 21 shillings in 1 guinea, but our coinage contained one penny coins along with 3 penny, 6 penny, one shilling, two shillings, two and a half shillings, and quarter and half pennies as well. Over the years these gained names, much like cents, nickels and dimes. 1/4d was a farthing, 1/2d was a halfpenny or hap'ny, 1d was just a penny, 3d was thruppence or a threp'ny bit, 6d was sixpence or a tanner, 12d was a shilling or bob, 24d was a florin or two bob, and 30d was a half-crown. Our notes started with ten bob or half a pound, then up through £1, £5, £10, £20. After decimalisation we started with 1/4 and 1/2p coins but eventually phased these out. We were then left with 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, £2 coins and £5, £10, £20, £50 notes.
I worked in a massive London Department Store on that D DAY and it was chaos with the Old Ladies trying to convert 240 Old Pennies and £1.
Luckily. Maths is my forte but I still remember that Saturday Morning when I was paid £1.50 to work from 9am-1pm as a Relief worker as I continued at weekends for a year after my first Summer job, in between School Hoidays.
We use what ever tends to be easier to work with many old school trades will use imperial as that's what they've used since day one and it's easier for them to calculate
A few hundred years ago people called the UK Great Britain to identify it from Brittany a place on the north coast of France and is small.....so....Brit-tiny and Great Britain.......OK?? love watching you two.
It's actually much more complicated than that....
Don't worry about using cups for measurements, old cooking recipes ( by age ) books will still have them in cups .
In the UK we had the metric system thrust upon us when we were in the EU; now it would be difficult th change back as young people, under 40 for example, don't know what feet and inches, ounces and pounds are. I am a bit shocked that two people who are teachers, and have even taught math(s) don't seem to know what the systen in the UK is.
You might enjoy "Brasseye" & "The Day Today". Hilarious surreal dark comedy.
UK uses both metric and Imperial. The obvious difference between Imperial and Customary is that your gallon is smaller.
Which is why you don't get as good gas mileage.
Stupidly here in the UK we have been slowly changing from imperial to metric, seriously it is the dumbest thing. I was in junior school in 1969 when we were given new metric rulers,weights and measures. But even now we have speed signs still in mph, yet when we get fuel it’s in priced and pumped in litres, My height is on my passport as 188cm but I’m 6ft 2’ when I go in a pub I get a pint of Guinness go to a pharmacy and it’s milligrams in my job it’s all metric we have youngsters (anyone under thirty) all metric. Anyone over it’s both systems, weird. but when travelling in Australia all metric they changed and it was a done deal.
As many have commented, we use both. but as time goes by metric will take over. I was born in 1960. educated with both systems. I am an engineer. I find if I'm guessing (estimating) I use imperial, if want to be accurate I use metric.
What puzzles me is why the Americans ended up with their own version of imperial. we have 20 fluid ounces to a pint and 8 pints to a gallon. Also there 2240 pounds to a ton.
The international scientific community uses metric. you can't fight it forever!!!
Plus the US used Metric for engine sizes but fills it in gallons.
The British imperial pint 🍺 is bigger then the USA one
We were supposed to go metric 50 years ago. However, we are still only half and half. The trouble with metric is that you cannot visualise it. Anybody can visualise a foot.
Both systems have uses that are unique due to their respective unit sizes/scales, Both should be used, it makes sense in some trades to know both
If you teach both systems and how to convert from one to the other you improve basic arithmetic. When Britain changed its currency people converted from decimal to sterling to understand the real cost. Hence it improved there arithmetical skills.
You have addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, trigonometry, statistics, calculus - all different branches of mathematics, which is why we say Maths and not Math in the UK.
Love the cobra kai t-shirt. I'm getting online immediately and searching for that.👍
Rule of thumb length of thumb from tip to first joint =1 inch.Logical. Hands in Horse measurement. Also just a random fact the length from elbow to wrist same as your foot length toe to heel.
England is metric when we want to be. We are only metric in theory and in school. We use a weird hybrid of the two in everday life. We buy milk in pints in bottles but in litres in cartons. fizzy drinks are in litres. We weigh in stones but the doctors weigh us in kilos. You can buy lengths of material in centimetres or yards so whatever we wish.. Heights are ft and ins at home metres and centimetres at the doctors. We switch one to the other in a typically eccentric fashion. By the way I still know that 22 yards make one chain, 10 chains make 1 furlong, 8 furlongs 1 mile. Yet we have I hectare (2.47 acres) of land. However if it was 2.5 acres we would probably call it that. Yes its messed up. But thats the way we do it.
Strangely the UK uses a mix of metric and Imperial
We use both Imperial and Metric in the UK.
i love my dishwasher, she's a good cook too.🙃
the Imperial System is a British system, British settlers took the system to the 13 colonies with them. there is a reason the output on your air conditioners are set in BTU's ( British Thermal Units) we do use metric and imperial interchangeably, its been 70 years since we officially adopted metric and we still only use it around 40-50% of the time, roads are in miles height in feet and inches weight in stone pounds and ounces we still buy milk and beer in pints etc. we have the best of both worlds. for example its much easier to build a house in millimetres and centimetres but if anyone told you their height in the same measurements 99.999% of people wouldn't have a clue
Your "customary" measuring system is officially defined in metric terms. for example, an inch is defined as 24mm. A gallon would be defined as 3.785 litres. So, we can say that America does use the metric system in a highly illogical way
You guys should have a go at the old money uk used before we went metric in the 70s,
we now have 100 pennies in a pound Stirling similar to 100 cents in a dollar but we use to have 240 pennies in a pound before we went decimal.
The majority of English measurements are now Metric. We do still use a handfull of imperial units, and our roads are still signposted for miles, but schools have only taught metric since the 1960s. Metric is by far the better system.
Canada uses the metric system, even with speed' but some of the think they are French. In England we mix them. Oh an English pint is more than an American one.
Imperial measures are based on simple to guestimate. an inch is the size of a thumb, a foot is the size of the kings foot, a yard is the length of a mans arm. etc. you can see the problem the kings foot in England was differrent to the Kings foot in France, but it is easy it imagine. Metric is more precise and in the scientific space age easier to understandand mathematically and more accurate. the imperial measurments differ in US/UK a pint is 20floz in UK compared to 16floz in US, therefor a US gallon (8 pints) is smaller than a UK gallon.
And yet, all customary and imperial units are defined using standard international (SI) units. i.e. Metric.
US Gallons are 3.8 Liters 8.34 lbs, Imp Gallons are 4.54 Litres, 10 lbs. US Pint 16 Fl oz, Imp Pint 20 Fl oz.
The government says we must use metric and we can handle that but people still use imperial. Ask a person their height or weight and they will answer in Imperial, distances in miles.
It's simple. The European union tried to impose metric on Britain. Lots of people didn't like that so that's why it's so mixed up.
Tru Say, Mi Bredda
Britain is officially metric, but we hang o to imperial stuff now and again. We use miles for road signs, but that's about it as far as officialdom is concerned.
The metric system is easier but is that a good thing ? Fractions are being forgotten and mental arithmetics are not practised. The only reason for the metric system is for calculators as people find it difficult to convert from Imperial to metric.
You make a good point. As someone who loves math, I don’t have an issue with the Customary system. But like I mentioned in the video, as a teacher who teaches converting units in the same system, it’s hard to help the students understand in the very short time we have to teach it.
Only Three Countries in the World (Officially) Still Use the Imperial System The U.S. Myanmar and Liberia so just third world countries then! UK has been metric for years and the U.S uses metric for a lot things.
The UK uses both , there was an attempt to change everything to metric, but that failed, Neither are over hard to learn.
At sea level a pint of water weighs a pound, and a litre of water weighs a kilo, English gallon is bigger than US
did you know that USA hold one of the two 1kg master weights the other is France and imperial is then converted from that 1kg master. so USA is part metric
The divisibility of 12 was the basis of the old £ which was made up of 240 pence in 20 shillings of 12 pence worth each. I recently learned that our pints are bigger than yours, which is odd. It's probably why we don't sell or buy milk or drinks in gallons or ounces, just in pints, up to 6 pints in a big family bottle of milk. Our measuring jugs will have two sets of markings down the side, one for fluid ounces up to 2 pints, and one in litre and millilitre. Cans of drinks are in millilitres for some reason, and the petrol stations went from gallons to litres in the 1990s for some reason, probably to do with the EU. We're being metricized by stealth over decades, with every few years another commodity or rule switching. I can't tell if it's corporate driven or governmental, but either way we don't get a say about it.
The GREAT British system IMPERIAL the king of measurement.
So you don't have different size cups in the US ?
Our drinking cups are all different sizes. However measuring cups for cooking are in one cup, 3/4 cup, 2/3 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/4 cup and 1/8 cup.
Savanna told me that her choice is more like mm vs 16ths of an inch.
You use the imperial system you may have called something else. it doesn't really matter. We went to the matric system when we joined Eurpen Common Market, but yet we still use pints for milk and Beer and Miles, so we are kind of a bit mixed up 1973 and some are still using the old measurements engineering science is using the matrix system totally 😉
Another reason for why Briton is GREAT because we use both systems whereas
the rest of the world use only one of the system.
Don't forget, a British ton is heavier than an, American ton, 2240 lbs.
I can see you like Al Murray but how about Al being himself " ROAD TO BERLIN - Al Murray Episode 1/10 D-Day"
The Uk was always Imperial, until the EU got hold of it. :( But Al, is right when it comes to division. Much better system, with very little rounding.
Jamaica will never go metric. Because if you had a 3ft Drawf he would be a Yardie not a metre
"it's hard to change an entire nation to using metric"
And yet every country on the planet has managed it somehow, with the exception of 3...
Your country "chose to go to the moon because it was hard", but changing over to metric is apparently too hard?
Runs thought not a joke, gmt it a fact we invented the imperial system of measurement
The UK pint is bigger than the US
we use both metric and imperial ,imperial came 60 years later than metric ,but i prefer imperial.
I love how the yanks still believe that the world revolves around them.
Try navigating in Metric, it can’t be done, using a sextant and the sun and stars requires imperial maths.
Sexagesimal (used thousands of years ago) would be better, as it was based on the 60's system and is more divisible. That's why we have 360 degrees, 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour; plus 12 and 24 hours. However, now we use the Decimal system as we have ten fingers, and people are generally stupid.
I'm a designer in the construction industry, all of my CAD drawings are done in metric due to code and standards. The stupid thing is, nearly all steel and timber construction materials are still manufactured to imperial sizes. This means the drawing will call for a 305mm steel beam but the stockists will sell it as a 12" beam. The guys on site and I will also convert everything to imperial on the fly when discussing the job. It doesn't cause any problems though because it is second nature to most Brits (we were taught both systems when I went to school).
When I started work in 1963 we had a mechanical calculator and used LSD (240 pennies to the pound). We had to convert to decimal so an old penny was .00416667, a shilling was .05 and multiples of these. For example 1/8d (one shilling and eight pence) was .08333333333. with usage it becomes second nature and I have never forgotten. The mechanical calculator was good exercise but noisy.
Your maths is slightly off when you say 2000lbs to a ton. A ton is 20 cwt(hundredwieght) and a hundredweight is 112 lb therefore a ton is 2240 lbs. 2000lbs is a METRIC Tonne.
You want to look into old British money before we went decimal. That would confuse you.
beer is the only non metric as in ireland but everything else is metric,
We use Miles not kilometres
There is no argument that metric system is better than the imperial system and against i'm sure the will of the nation the metric system started to appear in the public domain from circa 1971. Today we are virtually 100% a metric nation albeit we still navigate in miles and travel at MPH, cars economy is still largely calculated in MPG strangely this is accepted by the younger generations who were only ever taught the metric system.
Metric system works well and easy to calculate however when values need to be put into perspective then it's quite common for values and dimensions to be mentally recalculated in to imperial values to gains some sort of feel as to the true size or value of whatever is presented before you.
To say America is to big a nation to change to the superior metric system is the same flawed excuse that America could never control stricter gun regulations. It just takes positive legislation that covers all states and the will of the nation to follow it through.
AN AMERICAN GALLON IS SMALLER THAN A BRITISH GALLON LOL
Did Webster decide to change the from Imperial to Customary system? Because I know he was rabidly anti-British.
Come on guys, history we brought feet and inches pints, gallons etc to the colonies in America, you where once English/British.
Liverpool is my best city going I live 1 hour away by sea but support Liverpool football team so go there alot ,you'd love it n scouse is awesome n people are too
Sorry but now I have a question. I work with people from your side of the pond and never worked out why you call thousandths of an inch mills? Educate me 🙂