The Department for Transport has always maintained that the measurement system used on road traffic signs can be considered in isolation from the UK, European and global economies. The Winter Olympics in Korea, now drawing to a close, provide us with yet another reminder, should one be needed, that this might not be so.
Category: General
Metric in Myanmar – an update
In this article, we put together some reports regarding measurements used in Myanmar, which is often said, misleadingly, to be one of the three “non-metric” countries in the world.
Then and now
We take a look at a film from 1973 made with the aim introducing the metric system to the general public.
Acres made easy
We look ahead to the 400th anniversary of an innovation that simplified the measurement of land area, initially in England and later in the UK, by introducing decimals.
Alpine DIY and the generation gap
Happy New Year to all our readers.
In this article, the Editor explains the reason for the absence of new posts on MV in recent weeks. This leads to a discussion of a issue that few of us, perhaps, have encountered.
Use of the kilometre in the UK
As noted in a comment on our last article, the BBC’s acclaimed new series Blue Planet 2 uses metric measures for smaller distances and depths but miles for greater ones. Ronnie Cohen takes this opportunity to look at instances when kilometres are preferred to miles.
Autumn watched
UKMA has received a message from a viewer of BBC’s ‘Autumn Watch’. This article includes the message and the response.
Problems with US spelling variants for writing metric
This week, Ronnie Cohen takes issue with an example of American exceptionalism.
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New Internationalist, a metric role model for the British media
Back after our summer break, Metric Views is happy to publicize a periodical that might have escaped our readers’ attention in recent years. Ronnie Cohen explains.
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Do we sacrifice consistency and clarity for the sake of convention?
We are familiar with size numbers for shoes, hats, dresses and so on. Ronnie Cohen looks at the convention for screen sizes based on inches and asks if this really makes sense.
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