Metric? Let’s count in 12s!

BORIS Johnson’s proposal that we return to imperial measurements hasn’t gone down well in some quarters — the chairman of Asda said it was ‘complete and utter nonsense’.

But I have a certain affection for some of these old measurements and, oddly enough, there’s a mathematical case for a dozenal system (i.e. one based on the number 12) over a decimal system (one based on units of 10).

We measure many things in units of 12: a dozen eggs, 12 inches to the foot, 12 hours to the day and 12 months to the year (and it was 12 pennies to the shilling).

We do this because the number 12 is more versatile than 10; it can, for example, be divided more ways (by 2, 3, 4, and 6, compared with just 2 and 5 for the number 10). But the main reason we count in units of 10 is because we have 10 fingers and toes. While I’m happy to abandon pounds and ounces, I’m sticking to inches and feet.