Stone isn't esoteric or (terribly) archaic in the UK. Most people aged over, erm, 35 or so think of human weights in stone and pounds, rather than just pounds.
Personally, I was brought up on metric and have to mentally "translate" to the imperial system. It doesn't help that everything uses different base numbers. 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard, some big number of yards = 1 mile. 16 ounces = 1 pound, 14 pounds = 1 stone. (I think). Then British pints are 20 fluid ounces, not 16 as in the US.
This means you have to remember 12, 16, 14 and 20 for different types of measurement. This is just Too Much for my brain to cope with, so I think entirely in metric where everything is in nice powers of 10. You can tell I'm a scientist, right?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-08-30 04:54 pm (UTC)Personally, I was brought up on metric and have to mentally "translate" to the imperial system. It doesn't help that everything uses different base numbers.
12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard, some big number of yards = 1 mile.
16 ounces = 1 pound, 14 pounds = 1 stone. (I think).
Then British pints are 20 fluid ounces, not 16 as in the US.
This means you have to remember 12, 16, 14 and 20 for different types of measurement. This is just Too Much for my brain to cope with, so I think entirely in metric where everything is in nice powers of 10. You can tell I'm a scientist, right?