As the old joke has it: a million here, a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money!
But on the important subject of units and symbols for units, when you were a working chemist @henddraig, had the SI system not come in? Perhaps it didn’t affect chemists to the same extent as physicists and engineers.
When I was at secondary school, in the lower school we used the so-called CGS system - centimeter-gramme-second system, but by the time I was doing physics in the 6th form, we had moved on to the MKS system - metre-kilogramme-second. I’m not 100% sure how the process worked, but what became used in the SI (Système international) were the MKS, rather than the CGS units.
I guess you are referring there to the adoption of SI units, but as you also suggest, in practice people probably carried on using what they had been used to, for a long time, anyway.
It would have to keep me going for 30, perhaps 40 years. If I just lived on the interest there wouldn’t be much in the way of luxury. If I lived on the capital inflation would mean that the good numbers now would feel pretty meager at the end of that time. It would need to be thought about.
You probably don’t watch Rownd a Rownd Margaret, but there is a relatively new character on it (a lovable little old lady, by appearances) who could almost certainly set you up with a sure-fire-certain investment plan that would give you an amazing income while preserving the value of your capital (and would probably try to sell you Menai Bridge as well… ).
Not until I moved into Health Physics, at least cgs was still around when I was a chemist, despite what Wikipedia says! And, in fact, even when MKS became known as SI and, in my trade, Bq replaced Ci and Sieverts tossed aside rems, the Americans were very reluctant. They clung, not only to Curies but rads and rems and in other situations, like velocity, still used miles when all the world and his dog were in Kilometres. Now, I think they protest by spelling them Kilometers!! (Which, to us would be a meter measuring kilos!). A lingerer popular with many was the Angstrom unit, useful for tiny distances!
To be honest, publishing in US journals was a pain. ‘Thou shalt not spell oestrogen like that! It’s ‘estrogen’!’
This was before computers or clever typewriters. Imagine going through a long paper trying to pick up every instance of a totally correct spelling and mark it so that the poor Secretary can retype it all!!! Or, later, a correct unit!! We gave up publishing in the US, although, as I remember ‘Health Physics’ accepted SI units!!
Sorry if this seems totally irrelevant to Welsh, but SI must be used in official publications in any language!!
Well to be fair, the Germans spell it that way as well.
So do we, and to add to the fun, our gallons and (I think) quarts are different to yours. (Every time I try to get my head around the differences between US gallons etc, and UK ones, I end up more confused than before).
What I’ve never quite understood is your selling coffee in “ounce” cups instead of by a volumetric measure. (Well, I suppose fluid ounces are a kind of volumetric measure (I think), but they have always seemed a very confusing one, when there are liquid measures that don’t depend on weight). (sorry, this is even more off-topic…mae’n ddrwg gen i … ).
Our garages sell petrol,in litres, milk comes in litre and half litre, and 3 litre bottles, dry goods come in,kilos from the Supermarket, or the nearest equivalent, as our Coop isn’t that big! Even steak is weighed in grams, even when aged customers ask for ounces! @mikeellwood, I have realised this should be addressed to you, not Geraint! Anyway, Scotland is metric! I
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head, there will be more, is MPH. Even when you ask for a pint in the pub, you will receive a pint but would have actually bought 568ml.
what I don’t get is the hostility of advocates of the two main measuring systems towards each other, to the point where one is viewed as ‘backward’. They both have their merits. If we could just learn to use the best tool for the job at hand rather than argue over which measuring system/ language to use, we would all be better off. “A metre measures three foot three, it’s longer than a yard you see” is a wonderful phrase I discovered recently.
Having said all that i have perhaps committed myself to learning the Welsh for both systems!
I think I have read that legally speaking, for measuring distances on public roads, only miles and yards are “legal tender”. A bit of an anomaly in our otherwise largely metricated (UK) world.
My first job was in late 1968, for a firm that made medical equipment. I worked alongside engineers (but only as a lowly lab assistant). “British” units and components sized in those units were still heavily in use, but were gradually being superseded by metric ones. There was a fairly strong drive to metricate industry (and later commerce) at around that time.
There was a nice graphical logo that you used to see (probably promoted by the DTI or whatever it was called then), including what I can only describe as a “lazy M” - I i.e. sort of 3D “M”, at 45 degrees, and possibly the rest of the letters of the word “metric” (or “metricate”).
I tried to find an example on Google images, but so far without success.
It always seems to me that the metrication process in the UK was never fully completed though.
Edit: This article is quite interesting, and one of the symbols among those graphics looks what I vaguely remember (although there might have been more than one version of it):
