It’s thumbs up for imperial measure in Italy

sir – Letters on metric units (January 21) reminded me of an incident in Italy. While looking to buy a television for my mother who lived there, I was constantly being asked what pollici (thumbs) I wanted. It took me some time to realise that they were referring to the screen size in inches. Francis Bongiovanni

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

sir – Canada is a metric country with signs in kilometres and petrol in litres. But try going into a hardware, lumber or window store – or any other type of construction business – with your measurements in centimetres. They are all imperial, because the nearest neighbour, customer and supplier is the United States.

So it is possible to have distances in miles, fuel in gallons and food in pounds in parallel with metric measurements when convenient. We still buy cars based on miles per gallon, rather than litres per 100 kilometres as in Canada, but struggle to work consumption out with distance in miles and fuel in litres. Peter Knowles

Leigh-on-sea, Essex

sir – The width of a car tyre is measured in millimetres, while the wheel measurement is measured in inches. For instance, for tyre size 235/45R17, the first figure is the width in millimetres, the second the aspect ratio – the depth as a proportion of the width – and the third the diameter of the wheel in inches. The “R” means the tyre is a radial. That’s clear then. Mark Harries

Chesterfield, Derbyshire