With reference to Mike Batiste's complaint about the use of imperial units in (
Letters, 27 February) I totally disagree with him.
I am very much under 40 and believe that people of our level of education and experience should be 'bi-lingual', especially today when countries like the
There are times when it may be easier to use a system geared around Base 10, but it is globally natural to use Base 12 systems. An obvious example of this is time. Remember, 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 12 months to a year.
These are all Base 12, which is the same as what? Oh yes, the imperial system.
I believe the metric system is a pain — if Mr Batiste and I were to ever hold a technical conversation it would be slow as I would have to convert all metric units into imperial in my head so as to get a full appreciation as to what he would be talking about.
Consider this when thinking about Mr Batiste's call to scrap imperial. Who says that their car — even though engines are sized in litres — delivered 12.5kpl rather than 35mpg, or managed to do 200kph (124.27mph) on the M6? (the speed, of course, is just meant as a figure of speech). The answer, no-one, not even youngsters just out of school.
The imperial system will never go — not in our lifetime anyway. I suggest Mr Batiste does what I had to do and learn a 'second language' — he'll need it!
Neil Hutton
Dagenham, Essex
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