Dennie Quill, Contributor

With our preoccupation on the election and the advent of a new Government, it is not surprising that an interesting development in the bid to convert to the metric system in Britain went virtually unnoticed here in Jamaica. Earlier this week, it was announced that the European Commission and the Government of England have abandoned attempts to enforce metrication. In other words, Brussels has given up the fight to have the British people ditch pints, pounds and miles. Also, the right of the British to use imperial weights and measures is to be enshrined in the European Union law. The effect of the ruling is that Britain and Ireland can maintain miles on road signs and pubs can continue to sell a pint of beer.

Conversion to metric began in the 1960s with decimalisation and with the event of the introduction of the single market, the British Government had to signal its intention to commit to full conversion by 1979. But its implementation came up against determined opposition from campaigners and the public, who showed repeatedly they were unwilling to give up traditional measurements which formed part of their culture.

Reports say at least 15 consumer surveys conducted between 1995 and 2000 found the British people overwhelmingly rejecting metrification.

Four decades later

This explains why nearly four decades later the nation has failed to complete the process in relation to all measurements in society. The change to metrication has been stoutly resisted by opponents in Britain and this latest ruling is seen as a triumph for Steve Thoburn who became known as the Metric Martyr. The late grocer was arrested for selling bananas by the pound and his case became famous for defying EU's mandatory rules. He was fined £5,000 and he refused to pay the fine. He died of a massive heart attack before the case was resolved.

You may ask what does that have to do with us here in the Caribbean. Fact is almost everything we buy is sold by weight, volume or length. And so we had to fall in line with the rest of the world and establish a metrication board and take the necessary steps to move into metrication. Like in Britain and elsewhere in the world many resisted the change. Today, the last hold-outs are the mighty U.S.A., where metrication is voluntary, Liberia and Myanmar (Burma).

Although EU rules drafted in 1999 aimed to phase out imperial measures by 2009, one has to watch keenly to see how the latest ruling in relation to Britain will play out. Fact is we are told that the metric systems has various advantages such as its simplicity, its comprehensiveness and its preference by 80 per cent of global business, consumers and vendors have not really embraced the metric system.

Going metric

Old-timers like me who were trained in the Imperial weights and measures do not instinctively think in metric terms and I continue to buy a pound of yam. The police would not get any help from me in trying to locate a suspect who is 1.3 metres tall. However, if I am told about a man who is 6ft, tall then I have a pretty good idea what I ought to be looking for. I cannot say that I have a fixed image in my minds of 10 hectares of ganja fields being destroyed. At the same time, I have come to accept a litre of gasolene, and Veronica Campbell galloping out front in a 100-metre race. So, like many others, I am toggling between the two systems. It is predicted that one day soon the world will go metric.

In the new scheme of things, well-worn phrases like 'give him an inch and he takes a mile' would become 'give him a centimetre and he takes a kilometre'. Not the same ring you will admit, and after reading this column, I may have left you exhausted without an 'ounce' of strength. Never mind, as we 'inch' along the international highway of metrication, we may still use These terms, figures of speech remain intact, only the measurements have changed.