Returning to imperial measurements would be to take a step backwards

sir – The intention of returning to imperial measurements (report, May 29) is regressive, irrelevant and unnecessary. It means reintroducing a system that is totally alien to at least a generation and will bring no added value to our lives apart from a degree of nostalgia to some of the over-50s. There are more important things with which the Government needs to concern itself.

The decimal system is at the core of industry, science and education in every country in the world apart from America. Its beauty lies in the simple relationship between volume and weight – that a litre of water weighs exactly one kilogram. The biggest clue to imperial’s irrelevance is in the name.

Paul Bendit

Arlington, East Sussex

sir – Full marks to Allison Pearson (Comment, June 1) supporting a return to imperial measures. Her analysis – that for vast numbers of people they have never gone away – is spot-on.

Not long ago my local bank displayed a large poster advertising mortgages, featuring a first-time buyer celebrating his acquisition of a number of square feet of property.

When I congratulated the teller serving me (who was in his 20s) on the use of imperial measures, he said that metric measurements were for school and student days. In the “real world” (his words) imperial still ruled.

Philip Dalling

Chittlehampton, North Devon

sir – Historically, the advantages of imperial measurements to farmers has been that area and distance measures can be easily combined with weights. A gallon is also easily divided into eight pints, then into four gills per pint.

There are 640 acres in a square mile. Imagine a chess board placed over this area and you have 64 squares of 10 acres, each with a side of 220 yards, called a furlong, which equals 10 chains.

Pounds of weight are easily divided into 16 ounces. This can be done accurately with seed on a barn floor by every farm worker, without using weighing equipment. Similarly, liquids can be decanted into smaller bottles by inverting and marking the half-level.

The decimal system, with its kilometres, kilograms and litres, doesn’t allow for simple division before decimal points are necessary, so errors are easily made. It happens too often with medication dosage, with sometimes fatal consequences.

Dr Erik Borthwick

Cavendish, Suffolk

sir – I look forward to returning to the imperial weights and measures learnt at school. The system has, however, been retained in the metric world for pipe thread.

Plumbers in European countries are still obliged to use British Standard Pipe thread fittings to run pipework to taps and radiators, for example. While I have always been comforted by this small divergence from Napoleonic diktat, the reason eludes me.

Dr Michael A Fopp

Soulbury, Buckinghamshire