Your comments: Winter series 2008

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We would also like to know about your encounters with numbers, whether mystifying, strange or even beautiful.

And we hope you will join us in keeping a watchful eye on the way numbers are used and reported.

Read e-mails responding to topics in the Spring 2008 series

The views expressed on these pages are not necessarily the views of the BBC. The comments published will reflect the balance of views we receive.

YOUR COMMENTS:

Metric Vs Imperial

Whilst it is quicker to calculate in metric, it is usually quicker to communicate in imperial. Less syllables needed and imperial words often convey the context: 'one point nine one metres' or 'six foot three'? 'Seventy-six kilos' or 'twelve stone'? Maybe words used with imperial measurements help us convey that we are uncomplicated, straightforward people.
Felix Pring

The argument that from ancient times they related to bodily measurements cannot be true because in the Middle Ages the average size of a person was much smaller than that of people today. This means that if a foot is the length of an average foot today or a yard is the average height of the hip today, they were not so in the middle ages when people were smaller than today.
Allan Mitchinson

It's not a matter of either or. Go for a mixture and take a lesson - or not - from international aviation practice where speeds are in knots, heights/altitudes are in feet and lateral visibility is quoted in kilometres.
Jack Wells

It's long past time that this country switched to metric measures. The arguments against are all rather short-term, inertia-based and emotional. We have the worst of both worlds; two systems at once, guaranteeing maximum confusion. Let's drop imperial now and leave it to our American cousins. It's not that difficult for most people to make the switch - we have done it with money, and can't now imagine how we put up with the inconvenience of a non-metric monetary system for so long. The long term savings would be overwhelming; simpler calculations, no more double-pricing, great savings for commerce, industry and manufacturing - overall less confusion for us, for our children and for our foreign visitors. The current state of affairs is just daft.
John Wesley

Our media suggest we are forever being bullied by "Brussels" over the question of imperial measurements. In Italy 'pollici' (inches) are invariably used for the size of TV screens, and in the world of plumbing for pipe sizes (with regard to the latter a plumber told me that this was a technical matter, so naturally imperial had to be used!). What is going on?
Robin Paul

I am in my late 60's and have always found metric to be the least confusing, particularly for measurement. As to weights my preference is probably coloured by living in Germany for some years in the 1990's. It is much more controlled to get what you want by asking for the quantity i.e. 6 slices etc. In any event most people shop in supermarkets where most food is pre-packed and you select what you want - not being oversold by the shopkeeper.
Christopher Kelland

I've observed whereby people use these together but at opposite ends of each scale when talking about the temperature of the weather. For example - "It's going to be really hot tomorrow - in the high nineties" and "it's going to be really cold tomorrow - minus 5" are often used very happily together by the same people.
Daniel Letts

It is absolutely ridiculous to argue that people will not be able to "switch" from one system to another. After all, there was already one switch from old shillings and pounds to the new ones, which are actually metric! (decimal system).
Stan Zurek

I have lived in two different countries over the period that they converted from Imperial to metric measurement: New Zealand and Fiji. Both gave the population one year to make the change then converted everything 100%.

In New Zealand there was a couple of confusions between the 'm' and 'M' prefixes (dangerous in engineering!) and in Fiji much discussion about how to metricate a 'heap' of chillies and a 'string' of crabs (answer is that you don't).

When we returned to England in 1980 I was amazed to find this backward looking country could not achieve what our ex-colonies did so easily. Running the two systems is wasteful; it is not quaint it is just another sign of our lack of self confidence and fear of the big world.
Tony Martyr

I was in France a few years ago in a shop buying some cheese and thinking how to express myself properly when the lady in front of me asked for a 'demi-livre' of fromage. What a nice surprise it was to find that concept of a half-pound makes sense to the French. I've asked for livres and demi-livres of vegetables or cheese many times since. I don't think they aim to give you 227g, my guess is a livre is half a kilo.
Stephen Lord

In Germany, 500gr is often referred to as a "Pfund" - i.e a pound.
Peter Landon

Street Numbers

In Japan, the houses are numbered by the date at which they were built. Thus 1 can be next to 243, which can be next to 17. And 3 can be half a mile away. Beat that!
Alex

I used to walk the streets of Dublin and I noticed a third variant: the parallel street. There, the numbers would go from, say, 1 to 80, with 1 opposite 41 and 40 opposite 80. There were usually gaps so that the numbers went awry, as they do often with odds and evens.
Cecil Sanderson

I heard your feature about superstitions around the number 13. Chinese people traditionally are wary of the number 4. In Cantonese, the spoken sound of the number 4 closely resembles that of the word 'death'. Hence you find buildings that do not have a Floor number 4.
Kevin Wong

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, numbers start at the end of the street nearer the city centre. One side even, the other odd as in the UK, but the numbers used correspond to the distance from the beginning of the street, in metres. So the neighbour of a property 10 metres wide, say, will have a number 10 larger or smaller, not 2. The advantage: you can easily tell how much further you have to go to get to your destination!
Michael Scott

In the Czech Republic, near Slavkov v Brne (think: Battle of Austerlitz), the town numbering is extremely logical. The first house they built was no 1; the second no 2; and so on.
DJL

In the Ukraine each street is given a number which relates to the proximity of other streets.
R jenking

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