This is something that came up in my office, and I'm a bit stumped.

Why is it that in the English measurement systems, we never use decimals? We always end up using fractions, like one inch and 3/4 instead of 1.75 inches. Is there some reason for using fractions? What occurred to me is that it could be related to the lack of a zero. Or is it just a consequence of not using base 10?

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Ah, but we do. Or did, rather, before we went metric. Somewhere in amongst my old tools is a ruler maked in inches and tenths. I have used a rule marked in feet and tenths/ft. I also have my father's first micrometer caliper, which measures up to one inch in thousands of an inch.

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I have an Imperial and a Metric Combo Micrometer it's marked in Thou on the Imperial scale.

Remember the Imperial system uses a whole bunch of different Bases.
20 Shillings in a Pound.
12 Pennies in a Shilling.

20 Fluid Ounces in a Pint
8 pints to the gallon.
Different to US pints - beware!
36 Gallons or 4 Firkins in a Beer Barrel (still in use)

3 feet in a Yard
22 Yards in a Chain
10 Chains to the Furlong
8 furlongs to the Mile

here is a long list with lots of obscure Imperial measures
http://home.clara.net/brianp/quickref.html

14 Pounds in a Stone
20 Stones in a n Hundredweight
20 hundredweight to a ton
(Different to American Tons known here as a 'Short' Ton)

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quote from captain swoop's link:
Clove
Obscure unit of weight, equal to 7 pounds (av.)

i have always wondered, all these years......why the sauce tasted funny!

Aha, she used a clove of garlic! Oh, how frightfully English!
and i ate it and she said that she was glad i liked it and that it was the first time she had used garlic! i thought it was quaint, that it was the first time! oh, she used a whole clove! a really charming hostess! she was! bless her!

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Points up another difference in the dialects: where we in the states say "A pint's a pound the world around", they say "a pint of pure water is a pound and a quarter". What we got in common is, we like to nearly rhyme.

Heck, the differences between the English and metric systems aren't that great. They would probably take up no more space than a bushel, hogshead, and peck combined.

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I´ll convince my wife to buy our weekly wine-needs exclusively in hogshead-unit-bottles (2 or 3 may be good enough)

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Sorry, my question was really about why they are in fractions rather than decimals. You can say 6 feet 2 inches, but if you want to go more precise than that, you have to say something like 6 feet, 2 inches, and 1 fourth of an inch.

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What's always interested me is that the commonly used fractions -- 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and so on -- are inherently binary. Much more up-to-date than the decimal system, in which we are just counting on our fingers!

Edited to add: Wouldn't it have been easier to learn programming if we had only eight digits?

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As Graybeard6 said, we do. I have done a little machining myself, and certainly have worked a lot with machinists. I've seen lots of blueprints that had something like 1.375 inches for a dimension. It depends on the precision to which one is making an object. There is nothing in the metric system that makes it inherently more precise. Its just easier dividing by 10s.

That might explain the fractions for less precise work - it is easier for most people to go know that half of 1/2 is 1/4, than 0.250.

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That's 1 3/8, you know.

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Of course. But when you are machining a precise part, 1.375 +/- 0.005, means something different than just saying 1-3/8.

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I usually use inches in the page layout programs I work with, but it's easier to input decimals into measurement fields in the applications, so I have a bunch of the metric to english conversions memorized. It's second nature for me to type .0625 when I want a sixteenth of an inch, or .3125 when I want three sixteenths of an inch. With the work I do in packaging design, we often get dielines created by the engineers with the english units written as fractions (1.25, .6875, etc.).

Of course, most graphic designers are used to juggling all kinds of units, including points, picas, inches, millimeters, and pixels. It's just something you get used to.

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Sorry a Wine Barrel was 31 and a half gallons not the 36 of a Beer Barrel. You can't buy Wine by the Hogshead.

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I hope not with regards to the second measurement. Six times three isn't close to thirty.

Oops. I meant five sixteenths.

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Hi, I have a background in more than a few trades, tool making and carpentry amoung them.
We use decimal inches all the time. 3/8 = .375 . 1/4 = .250,
an inch and a 1/4 is 1.250 Simple, usefull and widely used ....everywhere.
Your initial premise is misunderstood by yourself, in as much as
our educators seldom give children a view of real industry, just the picture of the smoke stack.
There is nothing wrong with fractions or decimals.
If I need the center of 184, I can do it in my head....accurately....
every time. 92 And fractions are WONDERFUL !!!! Awesome in the minds of professionals who use them.
People fear systems they don't understand. But it is as simple as learning to cook and double or halve a recipie.
Don't give me metric. I am very comfortable with the english system.
My lathe is in inches. My threads are in inches. My mind has been formed around this superb system with simplicity in mind. It has been the foundation of working people for centuries. I shall not abandon it. THIS WORKS.
May it serve you well.
Best regards, Dan

Oops...need a one there. Always check your work.....hmmm.

It happens. I just had to point it out, since you claim to do this so well. I'd make a similar mistake, and danscope just did as well.

Which points though?
The 72 points to the inch or the 72.27 points to the inch?

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