On Dec 29, 10:51*am, Robert Neville wrote:
Richard Roberts wrote:
The UK government have (half-heartedly) been trying to remove old units
of measurement for about as long, and that's not going too well.
Arguably, non-metric units haven't been in full use for 30 years, and
people of all ages are still familiar with them.

And then there are things that are priced by weight and sold by unit... I was in
a Devon Tesco this past summer at the deli counter and wanted to purchase a
small amount of sliced ham. In the US I'd ask for a 1/4 pound. The price tag on
the ham listed the price in metric units and then helpfully listed the
equivilent price in imperial weight. I asked for about 100 grams. The clerk
responded, "so you want 3 or 4 slices then?"

But maybe their slices are very different in thickness than ours! 4
oz. might be two sandwiches, which could be 8 slices of the very thin
kind favored these days.

"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

But maybe their slices are very different in thickness than ours! 4
oz. might be two sandwiches, which could be 8 slices of the very thin
kind favored these days.

The final price was based on weight. I just thought it was amusing that the
clerk asked for the number of slices. They were indeed quite thick.

On 29/12/2011 17:01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Dec 29, 10:51 am, Robert wrote:
Richard wrote:
The UK government have (half-heartedly) been trying to remove old units
of measurement for about as long, and that's not going too well.
Arguably, non-metric units haven't been in full use for 30 years, and
people of all ages are still familiar with them.

And then there are things that are priced by weight and sold by unit... I was in
a Devon Tesco this past summer at the deli counter and wanted to purchase a
small amount of sliced ham. In the US I'd ask for a 1/4 pound. The price tag on
the ham listed the price in metric units and then helpfully listed the
equivilent price in imperial weight. I asked for about 100 grams. The clerk
responded, "so you want 3 or 4 slices then?"

But maybe their slices are very different in thickness than ours! 4
oz. might be two sandwiches, which could be 8 slices of the very thin
kind favored these days.

Hardly! Ask them to thinly slice it, if you want.

On Dec 29, 1:53*pm, "
wrote:
On 29/12/2011 17:01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:





On Dec 29, 10:51 am, Robert *wrote:
Richard *wrote:
The UK government have (half-heartedly) been trying to remove old units
of measurement for about as long, and that's not going too well.
Arguably, non-metric units haven't been in full use for 30 years, and
people of all ages are still familiar with them.

And then there are things that are priced by weight and sold by unit.... I was in
a Devon Tesco this past summer at the deli counter and wanted to purchase a
small amount of sliced ham. In the US I'd ask for a 1/4 pound. The price tag on
the ham listed the price in metric units and then helpfully listed the
equivilent price in imperial weight. I asked for about 100 grams. The clerk
responded, "so you want 3 or 4 slices then?"

But maybe their slices are very different in thickness than ours! 4
oz. might be two sandwiches, which could be 8 slices of the very thin
kind favored these days.

Hardly! Ask them to thinly slice it, if you want.-

Which makes the server's question utterly impractical and
incomprehensible.

"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

Which makes the server's question utterly impractical and
incomprehensible.

Sorry - I should have made it clear - the ham was presliced, with pricing in
metric and imperial units by weight. I assumed as it was priced by weight that
it would be sold by weight and that my stating "approximately" 100g would have
been sufficient for the server to work out how many slices that would equate to.
Later I noticed that other customers were asking for sliced lunchmeats by the
slice count as well - so it must be a local custom.

On Dec 29, 6:03*pm, Robert Neville wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

Which makes the server's question utterly impractical and
incomprehensible.

Sorry - I should have made it clear - the ham was presliced, with pricing in
metric and imperial units by weight. I assumed as it was priced by weight that
it would be sold by weight and that my stating "approximately" 100g would have
been sufficient for the server to work out how many slices that would equate to.
Later I noticed that other customers were asking for sliced lunchmeats by the
slice count as well - so it must be a local custom.

That seems rather unsanitary -- every pass of the knife or the slicing
machine exposes futher surfaces to possible contamination, and the
longer it sits, the staler it becomes! Not sliced to order -- or not
sealed in an airtight package -- isn't the way to go.

In message , at 16:03:31 on
Thu, 29 Dec 2011, Robert Neville remarked:
Sorry - I should have made it clear - the ham was presliced, with pricing in
metric and imperial units by weight. I assumed as it was priced by weight that
it would be sold by weight and that my stating "approximately" 100g would have
been sufficient for the server to work out how many slices that would equate to.
Later I noticed that other customers were asking for sliced lunchmeats by the
slice count as well - so it must be a local custom.

Most people make a sandwich by counting the number of slices of meat.
It's generally not paper-thin or wrinkled up, like many USA-ian sliced
meat is sold.
--
Roland Perry