This week saw the publication of research into the effects of reducing the standard serving size of draught beer in the UK.

The University of Cambridge study was described by its leader as being “the first real-world study to look at this”. It shows that reducing the current standard beer glass size in bars, pubs and restaurants from the current pint (568 ml) size has the potential to reduce the total amount of alcohol consumed in the UK, and should be given consideration as part of the Government’s fight to reduce the effects of alcohol consumption on health.

Health benefits of reducing alcohol consumption

Alcohol consumption is the fifth largest contributor to premature death and disease worldwide. In 2016 it was estimated to have caused approximately 3 million deaths worldwide.

Alcohol misuse can cause long-term consequences, such as higher risk of brain damage, liver disease, dementia, and a number of cancers. This has a particular effect for health services. In 2022/23, there were over 320 000 alcohol-specific hospital admissions. NHS England estimate that up to 15% of A&E attendances are alcohol related.

Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK were over 10 000 in 2022, a 70% increase from 2002.

Methods of reducing alcohol consumption

Until now, governments have focused on reducing alcohol misuse by reducing the availability of cheap, high-strength drinks. This has been done by the use of a duty, or tax, regime on the sale of alcohol. This regime was updated as recently as August 2023.

However, the Government hasn’t yet sought to use another option available to it, which is the reduction of the serving sizes of alcoholic drinks in pubs and restaurants. This is in spite of two recent academic studies that have both shown that reducing the largest available serving size leads to a reduction in the amount of alcohol consumed.

The results of a University of Cambridge study, published in January 2024, showed that removing the largest wine glass size led to an average reduction in the amount of wine sold in pubs and bars of just under 8%.

The results of a similar study, published this week, showed that removing the pint (568 ml) glass in favour of a two-thirds pint glass (379 ml) led to an average reduction in the amount of draught beer sold in licensed premises of just under 10%.

Published in PLOS Medicine, on 17 September 2024, the University of Cambridge research article concluded, “Given the potential of this intervention to reduce alcohol consumption, it merits consideration in alcohol control policies.”

The Guardian quoted Prof Dame Theresa Marteau, study leader and director of the behaviour and health research unit at the University of Cambridge, as saying, “Does this have the potential to contribute to population health? I’d say definitely, yes.”

Government reaction

The only published Government reaction to the study, so far, appears to be in a BBC article, in which Labour MP Josh Simons, an ally of prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, says he would not back any plans to remove pints as the top measure of drinks. The article quotes him as saying, “I love a pint and leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer loves a pint.”

The elephant in the room – Metrication

The University of Cambridge study was restricted to the use of legally available draught beer serving sizes, and so was unable to test more subtle reductions in size from the one pint (568 ml) glass size. The two-thirds of a pint (379 ml) glass size used in the trial was the available option with the smallest reduction in size – but even this option represented a large reduction of 33%. The consumer-acceptability of this reduction was an obvious obstacle in conducting the study – researchers had asked more than 1700 pubs, bars and restaurants to participate in the trial, but only 13 accepted, despite compensation offers for lost sales.

A more subtle reduction in glass size would probably have led to a more subtle reduction in alcohol consumption, but it might also have led to a proposition more acceptable to consumers and therefore less politically problematic for the Government to consider. Any possible reduction in alcohol consumption should be something to be taken seriously, rather than rejected outright.

The sizeable 33% reduction necessary for this trial is reminiscent of the situation in Wales when a reduction of 33% had to be made when the default speed limit was lowered in 2023 from 30 mph, using imperial units – a more finely-tuned adjustment could have been made using metric speed limits in km/h.

The current range of prescribed sizes for draught beer is quite coarse:

⅓ pint, ½ pint, ⅔ pint, 1 pint, multiples of ½ pint.

All sizes are specified in imperial pints and fractions only. It might surprise some readers to learn that draught beer cannot currently be sold in metric quantities.

Given that the fluid ounce ceased to be a legal unit for trade long ago, any new imperial glass size intermediate to the two-thirds pint and one pint would have to be specified in another awkward-looking fraction of a pint. Two of the prescribed quantity sizes for draught beer already lead to recurring numbers when written as decimals.

Of course, the obvious solution would be to bring the sale of draught beer and cider into line with beer and cider already sold in bottles and cans, by switching all prescribed quantities of draught beer and cider to metric units, with sizes based on multiples of 100 ml.

The International Organisation Of Legal Metrology, OIML, already has such a standard metric range. The range provides for two round metric sizes that are both smaller than the imperial pint and also larger than the awkward two-thirds pint size.

…, 200 ml, 250 ml, 300 ml, 400 ml, 500 ml, 1 litre, …

The 500 ml size would be an obvious replacement for pint glasses in pubs, and the 400 ml size would probably be an option more welcome in a restaurant setting.

Beer glasses in these sizes can already be found in bars and restaurants across our continent. These standard sizes come in a variety of designs. The adoption of standard metric beer glass sizes will give bar and restaurant owners a greater choice of glass designs, and ought to lead to cheaper glasses in the long run.

The 500 ml (0.5 litre) size is about 12% smaller than an imperial pint, and the 400 ml (0.4 litre) size is about 30% smaller than an imperial pint. As a replacement for pint glasses, either size should lead to a reduction in national alcohol consumption, and so should be of interest to any government with a serious commitment to reducing the impact of alcohol consumption on the NHS.

Other opportunities and benefits

If new glasses switch to the lined variety, rather than the brim-measure type currently used, new 500 ml lined glasses would actually be larger than the current brim-measure pint (568 ml) glasses, and would allow room for a proper head of beer, with fewer spillages. A typical 500 ml lined glass has a to-the-brim capacity of over 600 ml.

Apart from doorstep deliveries of milk, the sale of draught beer and cider in pints represents the last holdout of imperial units for trade. Switching to metric units for this purpose is long overdue. The need to know one less conversion factor will benefit consumers.

Will metric mean the end of the “pint”?

Brits abroad already have no problem when ordering “a pint” of beer in a bar serving beer in 0.4 litre or 0.5 litre glasses. In such circumstances, the word “pint” is always understood by both parties to mean “large beer”. Similarly, selling draught beer in 500 ml glasses in the UK need not prevent Sir Keir Starmer, or anyone else, from enjoying “a pint”. The word “pint” will live on for a long time after metrication, just as the word “dram” has already done when referring to whisky served in 25 ml or 35 ml glasses.

References

Removing pint glasses could reduce beer sales by almost 10% – 18 September 2024
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/removing-pint-glasses-could-reduce-beer-sales-by-almost-10

Removing largest wine glass serving reduces amount of wine sold in bars and pubs – 18 January 2024
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/removing-largest-wine-glass-serving-reduces-amount-of-wine-sold-in-bars-and-pubs

Impact on beer sales of removing the pint serving size: An A-B-A reversal trial in pubs, bars, and restaurants in England
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004442

Impact on wine sales of removing the largest serving size by the glass: An A-B-A reversal trial in 21 pubs, bars, and restaurants in England
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004313

The new alcohol duty system – 1 August 2024
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9765/

Small beer: Study calls on government to shrink pints
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gl737zr79o

Pint of no return? Two-thirds measure could boost English health – study
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/sep/17/pint-two-thirds-beer-measure-english-health-study-pubs

Vessels for commercial transactions – OIML
https://www.oiml.org/en/files/pdf_r/r138-e07.pdf

(Acknowledgement to Martin Vlietstra for the OIML reference)

The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024 is a Statutory Instrument that was made on 30 April 2024 to tackle knife crime. Parts 1 and 3 of it came into force on 26 June 2024, Part 4 came into force on 26 August 2024 and Part 2 will come into force on 24 September 2024. Part 2 contains two references to measurement. One refers to the length of a weapon’s blade and the other refers to the distance of the serrated cutting edge from a blade’s handle. And they are both in inches.

Part 2 contains the amendment of the Criminal Justice Act (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988. It defines the specific amendments to the Act. Here is the relevant text that uses inches in the amended legislation. This section inserts some text into the Act and includes the following text:

(iii) a blade of over 8 inches in length (the length of the blade being the straight-line distance from the top of the handle to the tip of the blade)

In another section in Part 2, the following text is also inserted:

(a) a serrated cutting edge (other than a serrated cutting edge of up to 2 inches next to the handle)

In July 2024, the Government also published the guidance for the Statutory Instrument that amends the Act. This is called the “Guidance for surrender of ‘zombie-style’ knives and ‘zombie-style’ machetes and claiming compensation”.

It seems that the Government is following the convention of using inch-based descriptions of knives and machetes. Why are they not leading by example and using metric units? It would cost nothing to banish all uses of imperial units from all legislation by replacing them with metric units through statutory instruments. Why is there a lack of commitment by British politicians to use metric units exclusively in legislation? It would help the UK to move to a single system of measurements that is used for all purposes in the UK and remove the need for Britons to cope with two competing systems of measurement.

SPOILER ALERT:
The official UK and USA metrology websites are INACCURATE

Since the inception of the International System of Units (SI) in 1960, it has always been recognised that some non-SI units, such as the litre, minute and hour, are “widely used and are expected to continue to be used for many years”.

The SI caters for this reality by giving special status to a small number of such units, allowing them to be used alongside SI units for the foreseeable future. For the avoidance of confusion over which non-SI units can be used alongside SI units, the SI Brochure includes an internationally agreed list of “non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI”.

Anyone in doubt over whether any given non-SI unit, such as the “calorie”, “bar”, “are”, “nautical mile” or “astronomical unit”, can be used with the SI, can simply check the list in Table 8 of the SI Brochure.

The 2019 Redefinition of the SI

An often-overlooked detail of the redefinition of the SI base units in 2019, was the major rationalisation that also took place at that time of the non-SI units listed in the SI Brochure – the definitive reference for the metric system.

The 2019 revision resulted in a greatly simplified list of “non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI”. These units, together with all SI units, form what is generally known as the modern metric system. This process of rationalisation has been under way since the inception of the SI.

The previous (8th) edition of the SI Brochure, published in 2006, included definitions for no less than 42 non-SI units, of which only 12 were described as being accepted for use with the SI. These non-SI units were split into different categories across four separate tables.

In contrast, the current (9th) edition of the SI Brochure, published in 2019, includes definitions, in a single table, for just 15 non-SI units, all of which are described as being “accepted for use with the SI”.

Previous editions of the SI Brochure included definitions for some non-SI units that are not accepted for use with the SI. Categories detailing examples of such units, e.g. “Other non-SI units” in the 8th edition of the SI Brochure, no longer exist. The rule is now much simpler – any non-SI unit not included in the SI Brochure cannot be considered to be part of the modern metric system.

The 15 non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI

The table below reproduces the complete list of all “non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI”, as given by Table 8 of the current SI Brochure.

Name Symbol Value minute min 1 min = 60 s hour h 1 h = 60 min = 3600 s day d 1 d = 24 h = 86 400 s astronomical unit au 1 au = 149 597 870 700 m degree ° 1° = (π/180) rad minute ′ 1′ = (1/60)° = (π/10 800) rad second ″ 1″ = (1/60)′ = (π/648 000) rad hectare ha 1 ha = 1 hm2 = 104 m2 litre l, L 1 l = 1 L = 1 dm3 = 103 cm3 = 10-3 m3 tonne t 1 t = 103 kg dalton Da 1 Da = 1.660 539 066 60(50) × 10-27 kg electronvolt eV 1 eV = 1.602 176 634 × 10-19 J neper Np bel B decibel dB

Whilst national metrology institutions were quick to update their websites with respect to the new definitions for SI base units, five years later some of these same organisations have still not updated their websites to take account of the latest definitions for non-SI units accepted for use with the SI.

National Physical Laboratory (NPL)

NPL is the home of the UK’s National Metrology Institute (NMI). Amongst other things, NPL was responsible for proposing the recent additions to the SI prefixes that were internationally approved in 2022.

However, NPL’s list of “Non-SI units accepted for use with the International System” is far from ideal:

The table on their website omits the following non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI:

• hectare
• electronvolt
• astronomical unit
• dalton
• decibel

The table also has two identical entries for “tonne”, and a definition for “minute of plane angle” which is just another name for “minute of arc”.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

NIST is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce. It is the national metrology institute of the USA.

Table 6 on their webpage,
https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Info/Units/outside.html
lists “Units outside the SI that are accepted for use with the SI”.

It defines the electronvolt with an approximate value, stating that “the value must be obtained by experiment”. However, since 2019, it has been defined with an exact numeric value, owing to the redefinition of the ampere.

The table also omits the following non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI:

• hectare
• decibel

Table 6 neglects to state that the “unified atomic mass unit” is now referred to as the “dalton”.

On the same webpage, Table 7 incorrectly lists the following units as being “currently accepted for use with the SI”, whereas in fact they are obsolete and are not accepted for use with the SI:

• nautical mile
• knot
• are
• bar
• ångström
• barn
• curie
• roentgen
• rad
• rem

The “are” in particular has never been accepted for use with the SI.

NIST have a number of other webpages detailing non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI. The following webpage seems to be up-to-date:
https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-330/sp-330-section-4

But this page has numerous inaccuracies:
https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-811/nist-guide-si-chapter-5-units-outside-si

To add to the confusion, in Table 9, NIST makes a distinction between “non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI” as defined by the CIPM, and “non-SI units that are accepted for use with the SI” as defined by their own Guide.

Examples of units that NIST’s Guide state are accepted for use with the SI, regardless of the CIPM, include old CGS radiometry units such as the “curie”, “roentgen” and “rad”.

Table 9 also incorrectly lists the following units as being “non-SI units accepted for use with the SI by the CIPM”:

• nautical mile
• knot
• ångström
• barn
• bar
• millimetre of mercury

Conclusion

Both NPL and NIST are national metrology institutes. As such, the information on their websites is assumed to be correct and up-to-date. It’s quite likely that other websites and sources of information about the metric system cite theses websites as authoritative sources of information. It is therefore shocking that the information to be found there about non-SI units has seemingly remained incorrect for so long.

Further reading

SI Brochure – BIPM
https://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure

Non-SI units – UKMA
https://ukma.org.uk/what-is-metric/definitions/non-si-units/

Non-SI units accepted for use with the SI – Metric System
https://metricsystem.net/non-si-units/accepted-for-use-with-si/

Editor: Please note that since this article was originally published, the NPL website has been corrected.

During the last decade of the nineteenth century, events in Southern Africa were dominated by the gold rush as adventurers scrambled to exploit the newly discovered in the Johannesburg area. This and the egos of and animosity between the financier and Cape Colony prime minister Cecil John Rhodes and the aging and dour president of the Transvaal Republic Paul Kruger resulted in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

The railways played a major part in the conduct of the war, both for transporting troops and during the guerilla phase of the war, segmenting the country. The railways that were under British military control were operated as a military unit known as British Imperial Railways. The director was Col Percy Girouard (later Sir Pery Girouard). A by-product of his report (1903), written once the railways had been returned to civilian rule shows that some parts of the system were designed and built using metric rather than imperial units. Unfortunately, once the war was over this degree of metrication was reversed under the pretext of Imperial Preferences.

Context

In 1885, European settlers controlled four territories in Southern Africa – two British Colonies, the Cape Colony and the Natal Colony alongside two Boer republics, the Orange Free State (OFS) and the Transvaal or South African Republic (ZAR). The British colonies had introduced railways and were expanding them inland as funds permitted. Both the Cape Colony and the Natal Colony used the narrow 3’6” (now 1067 mm) railway gauge rather than the standard 4’8½” (now 1435 mm) gauge. In contrast, the impoverished Boer republics had no railways, though there was a desire within the ZAR to access the sea without passing through British held territory by building a railway to Delagoa Bay (modern day Maputo) which was under Portuguese control.

Railway network 1890

In 1886 everything changed. Gold was discovered in what is now the Johannesburg area. Adventurers flocked to the new town to seek their fortune and a race was on between the coastal colonies to build railways to link the goldfields to the sea. The ZAR civil service, unable to cope with the influx of newcomers, recruited staff from the Netherlands, especially those who, like Kruger, were Doppers (a branch of the Dutch Reformed Church).

Kruger, ever anxious to avoid British control of his access to the sea encouraged the floating by Dutch and German financiers of the Nederlandsche Zuid-Afrikaansche Spoorwegmaatschappij (Netherlands–South African Railway Company or NZASM) to build the dreamed-of line to Delagoa Bay. The port facilities in Delagoa Vay were minimal compared to those in the British colonies and to ensure eventual inter-connection with the colonial railway systems, NZASM used the same gauge as the coastal colonies. Kruger also prohibited the building of any other railway lines within the ZAR until the NZASM line was complete.

In Natal, railway construction accelerated and within a few years the Natal Government Railways (NGR) had reached the Transvaal border. The Cape colonial government, realising that their best route to the goldfields was via the OFS, came to an arrangement with the OFS government that the Cape Colony would finance a railway through the OFS territory and would operate the railway for their own profit for five years after which time it would be handed over to the OFS government.

Railway Network, Southern Africa 1901

Construction of the Delagoa Bay line hit problems when it had to climb the escarpment reaching a height of 1700 metres above sea-level. In order to speed up the building of the Delagoa Bay line, Kruger permitted the building of the link from the OFS border to Pretoria thereby enabling the NZASM line to be built from both ends. Once the Delagoa Bay line was complete, Kruger permitted the Natal Colonial Government to fund the building of a railway on NZASM’s behalf that would link the NGR network to the rest of the NZASM network.

Once these lines were in place, NZASM adopted a policy of discriminatory pricing that favoured the Delagoa Bay line. This led to the “Drift Crisis” and contributed indirectly to the Jameson Raid and finally the outbreak of war.

In the interim, NZASM built a line to the south-west, but this line was not particularly profitable, so they agreed to a British company building and operating a line northwards from Pretoria to Pietersburg (halfway to the Rhodesian (now Zimbabwean) border.

War between the Boer Republics and the United Kingdom broke out on 12 October 1899. The war itself can be divided into three phases:

• In the first phase, which lasted for about six weeks, the Boers had numeric superiority. They laid siege to the British towns of Mafeking, Ladysmith and Kimberley.
• During the second phase, which lasted about six months, the British, reinforced by troops from around the Empire pushed the Boers back and finally occupied the Boer capitals of Bloemfontein and Pretoria. As the Boers retreated, they wrecked as much of the railway lines as possible.
• During the third phase, the Boers resorted to guerilla tactics, while the British consolidated their position by extending control across the whole of the Transvaal. During this phase of the Boer War, the Boers regularly ambushed British trains and blew up culverts and bridges. Towards the end of this phase, the only railway line under Boer control was in the region of the Portuguese border and, in an act of final desperation, destroyed as much railway rolling stock as they could.

At the start of the second phase, part of the British strategy was to set up a military organisation, the Imperial British Railways under the control of Percy Girouard.

Girouard’s Report

Once the war had finished, Girouard published a formal report that ran to 142 pages of which 58 pages catalogued incidents caused by Boer action. Each entry has as a minimum the location, date and summary of the incident. The list is divided up geographically.

The locations of the incidents were denoted by reference to the nearest location marker. These markers show the distance from the nominal start of the line. In the case of the lines in the Cape Colony, Natal Colony and OFS, the distances were quoted in miles. In the case of lines located in the ZAR, regardless of whether the line was funded by Dutch and German financiers, the Natal Colony or the Cape Colony, distances were quoted in kilometres.

The damage to pillars is usually described using imperial units though the lengths of prefabricated spans is given in the units used by the original manufacturer. On page 50, he summarised the number and length of bridge spans repaired or replaced. There are two columns of figures – one for spans that were designed using metric units and one for spans designed using imperial units. From the catalogue of repairs effected, it appears that all the bridges in the ZAR were designed using metric units, but those in the other three territories were designed using imperial units. From an engineering point of view the 48 cm difference between a 30-metre span and a 100-foot span is significant when the new span had to be laid on existing pillars, so it was essential that the dimensions of spans that had to be repaired were correctly identified.

Although Girouard made minimal mention of the locomotives used, other than to give the numbers, I made an investigation from Wikipedia of two locomotives, the ZAR NZASM 46 tonner and the CGR Class 6 locomotive. This investigation showed that the NZASM engine, manufactured in Germany, was designed using metric units – wheel sizes of 810 and 1300 mm and cylinders with a bore of 430 mm and a stroke of 630 mm while the Class 6 locomotive, built in the United Kingdom, was designed using imperial units – wheel sizes of 28½, 54 and 37 inches and cylinders with a 17 inch bore and 28 inch stoke.

Aftermath

The War ended on 31 May 1902 with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging. The Boer republics became British colonies, the Imperial Military Railway unit was disbanded, and the railways of the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony being merged into a single organisation – the “Central South Africa Railways” (CSAR). The CSAR was operated by a council which was responsible to the joint governments of the two former Boer republics. Girouard resigned his commission and was appointed civilian director of the new organisation. On 31 May 1910, the four colonies were united to form the Union of South Africa and on 1 January 1912 the railway companies of all four colonies were amalgamated to form “South African Railways” (SAR).

In the years preceding the war, the Transvaal Republic took delivery of 175 46 tonner locomotives, but only 44 of these were entered onto the SAR roster in 1912, the rest having been destroyed, sold or scrapped. By 1919 SAR had disposed of all its 46 tonners. A similar fate befell other NZASM locomotives. In contrast the Class 6 locomotives continued in service until after the Second World War. With the phasing out of the NZASM rolling stock and the adoption of Imperial Preference most of the new South African rolling stock was built in the United Kingdom or later, in South Africa itself. As a result, until the early 1970’s when South Africa adopted the metric system, all South African railway design took place using imperial units – for example, the 1953 SAR annual report shows the lengths of all lines in miles and chains.

Sources of Maps

• 1890 network: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cape_Colony_and_neighbouring_states_1870-1890_b.jpg
• 1901 network: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SouthernAfricaRailwayMap_1901.png

References

• Girouard, EPC (1903). History of the Railways during the War in South Africa 1899-1902:  https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/History_of_the_Railways_During_the_War_i/JcM2AQAAMAAJ?hl=en
• NZASM 46 tonner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Class_B_0-6-4T
• CGR Class 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Class_6_4-6-0

If like me, you are a fan of the Olympic Games, over the last 16 days you have probably enjoyed seeing the metric system used almost exclusively in TV coverage of the Games. It seems that the tendency, all too common in the 1970s, for British TV commentators to convert heights jumped, and distances thrown, into feet and inches, is definitely a thing of the past.

However, whilst most of the events, such as athletics, swimming and cycling, could be said to be exclusively metric, a few events still made use of non-metric measurement units.

Now that the Paris 2024 Olympic Games have come to a close, we take a look at some of the last hold-outs of non-metric units.

Golf

In golf, outside of the Olympic Games, the use of yards for hole distances generally depends on which country the golf course is in. For example, it seems that Australia, New Zealand and most European countries use metres, but that the UK, USA and some Middle-Eastern countries use yards.

In the Paris 2024 Olympics, hole distances were shown in dual units – metres and yards, on both the courses themselves and on TV graphics.

Men’s golf – Paris 2024

It is not apparent why there was any need for dual units – after all, dual units were not used for athletics 100 years ago, when many other nations were still using yards for track events.

e.g. When Britain’s Eric Liddell famously won the 400 metres at the Paris 1924 Olympics, newspaper headlines didn’t see any need for dual units in their articles about the event.

 
Shields Daily News – 12 July 1924

The graphics overlays on the TV coverage of the golf events did not restrict the use of dual units to hole distances.

Men’s golf – Paris 2024

Every sort of measurable statistic was shown in dual units – speeds in km/h and mph, ball trajectory apex heights in metres and feet, and ball trajectory curves in metres and feet.

As is customary in imperial, vertical distances are not measured in yards, so for the golf events, all vertical distances were shown in feet, with horizontal distances shown in yards, except on greens where horizontal distances were shown in feet and inches.

In contrast, all distances in metric were shown in metres, regardless of whether they were vertical or horizontal.

If ever there was a case for Golf’s governing bodies to bring their sport up-to-date internationally, it was this muddled use of units seen on TV coverage shown all round the world.

The BBC TV golf commentary made no use of the metric units shown, choosing to stick exclusively with imperial units.

As a side issue, it is curious why ball speeds in sports are not given in metres per second. Being able to visualise how many metres a ball travels in one second is easier, and seems more relevant to sport, than being able to visualise how many kilometres it would travel in one hour.

Sailing

For all sailing events, wind speeds were shown in knots, symbol “kn”. The knot is a non-SI unit that is not accepted for use with SI.

Wind speed 11 kn – Women’s kite – Paris 2024

Boat speeds were also shown in knots, but for some unknown reason a different abbreviation was used, “kts”.

GBR speed 30.9 kts – Women’s kite – Paris 2024

Computer overlay graphics showed distances to destination marks in metres.

Mixed multi-hulls – Paris 2024

Again, it is not immediately obvious why the computer graphics for sailing events could not have used km/h for speeds, or better still m/s. Wind speeds in athletics events, such as the long jump and sprints, are shown in metres per second.

The marathon

Often mistaken for an imperial race, the marathon is exactly 42 195 metres, with progress markers at every kilometre. 2024 is the 100th anniversary of the marathon being standardised at this length.

Men’s marathon – Paris 2024

The BBC TV commentary team are to be congratulated for barely mentioning miles in either the men’s or women’s marathon. As with cycle road races, any mention of miles can lead to confusion. The omnipresent computer graphics showing the race’s progress in kilometres to one decimal place, are all that is needed for any viewers unfamiliar with kilometres.

In the men’s marathon, as the runners were approaching a particularly steep section of the course, commentator Paula Radcliffe noted the muddled units that she was about to quote describing the gradient.

Paula Radcliffe:

“I’m not sure why I’ve got it mixed up in terms of metric and imperial, but between 14 k and 20 k it climbs 511 feet.”

Men’s marathon – Paris 2024

We will leave it to readers to calculate for themselves the average gradient percentage over that 6-kilometre stretch of the course.

Absolute distances in metres, relative distances in yards?

Olympic silver medalist, and former 1500 m world record holder, Steve Cram is a much-admired and valued member of today’s BBC athletics commentary team. He is an excellent commentator and quite naturally describes distances along an athletics track in terms of metres. However, I hope he won’t mind us pointing out his rather odd quirk, unique amongst the BBC commentary team it seems, where he tends to describe the distances between runners in terms of yards and fractions, rather than metres:

Steve Cram:

“Look at the start of Seville. He’s a yard-and-a-half … certainly a big yard behind.”

Men’s 100 m final – 1st replay – Paris 2024
[Editor: “a big yard” – could that be a metre?]

Steve Cram:

“Battocletti of Italy is close here. Can Chebet hold her off?
Battocletti a yard away, half a yard away. Can she get there?”

Women’s 10 000 m – Paris 2024

Paris 2024 – upper and lower case characters

The style of font used for all Olympic Games text at the 2024 Games was such that lower case letters were represented by small block capitals. This made the distinction between upper and lower case letters less obvious. This in turn made it less easy to discern whether the correct case was being used in the SI symbols shown in TV graphics.

Los Angeles – 2028

The Olympic Games move next to Los Angeles, USA in 2028. Dare we hope for a greater use of metric units in events like sailing and golf in the next Games?

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