The UK Government has said that it intends to bring back imperial measurements, meaning trading and other business activity may be carried out in units of measurement such as ounces and pounds, as opposed to the metric rules of grams and kilograms.
Currently, the UK uses a mixture of measurements, with miles being used instead of kilometres, and beer being sold in pints, but is also required to use grams and kilometres elsewhere to align with European and international rules. It is speculated that the move is to shore up the Conservative government's popularity with Brexit voters and the older generation.
Much of the nation seems divided on the issue with many younger Brits not having any current understanding of the old measuring and weighting systems.
The Guardian spoke to some British residents asking them what they thought of the policy proposal.
Chris Carter, 45, said the move was absolute nonsense, saying:
"Why change something that works? It makes no sense. You're going to have all the school kids that have learned the metric system who then have to switch over to old imperial measurements."
While Nigel Ormerod, 70, agreed, saying:
"In one way I would like it to come back, probably because of the nostalgia, but I'm happy to stay with what we have got, especially as Europe use metric. I know we are out of the EU but hardly any other countries use imperial now."
While his wife added:
"We were talking to our grandsons about feet and inches and they looked totally blank at us so you would have to educate an awful lot of people," she says. "There's probably less of us around that do remember."
There is so far no indication of how the policy would be introduced or quite how the government will spend money and time educating tens of millions of people on how to use the 'new' measurements.
Businesses are also worried that this will make purchasing and trading abroad much more difficult as goods will need to be translated from one measuring system to another, causing further trading issues on top of Brexit.
[Based on reporting by: The Guardian]
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