Acre not to be abolished - unfortunately
The media just can’t get it right. Nor can they miss any opportunity, however unfounded, to knock both the metric system and the European Union. The latest non-story is to be found in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail of 21 July.
With a headline “EU abolishes British acre” the Telegraph declares that “The acre, one of Britain’s historic imperial measurements, is to be banned from use under a new European directive.” Similarly, the Daily Mail’s headline announced: “Selling land by the acre to be banned under new EU ruling.” See these links:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036895/Selling-land-acre-banned-new-EU-ruling.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2310257/European-Union-abolishes-the-British-acre.html
Both papers then go on to print verbatim the misinformed comments of a Conservative spokesman - from which it is obvious that the story emanates from a Conservative Party press release.
In fact the acre is not to be abolished. All that has happened is that, since the UK’s Land Registries have for many years used hectares rather than acres for land registration, it has been agreed that the exemption for acres for this purpose (and this purpose only) is redundant. So the decision is a tidying up measure that makes no practical difference to this or any other uses of the acre.
In any case, land is not bought and sold by unit of area (that is, priced per acre or hectare). Each site is unique and is sold as a single lot. You can’t stroll into the estate agent and order “10 acres/hectares of land, please”. Where acres and hectares are used, they are simply descriptions of the size of a site.
However, when it comes to paying of EU subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy, hectares are of course mandatory. This is because a consistent means of calculating subsidies is necessary, and since every other country uses hectares, it is only sensible that the UK should fall into line.
UKMA believes that it would be better if acres WERE abolished for all remaining legal, trade and official purposes. Once it is understood that a hectare is equivalent to a square 100 m by 100 m, it is very easy to work with. (The Mail and Telegraph articles illustrate the dysfunctional nature of acres by including the helpful information that an acre is 4840 square yards!) It is also highly inconvenient to have to work in hectares for some purposes and acres for others, with all the problems of conversion errors and incomprehension that result.
So the Mail and the Telegraph got it wrong. The EU has not abolished the acre. If only the UK Government would.
July 21st, 2008 at 22:17
I am forty seven and was taught to use the metric system at primary and middle school on the isle of wight in the late sixties and early seventies. I work in healthcare and regularly have to make conversions between imperial and metric measures - I think in kilometres rather than miles and metres rather than yards - I totally support what you are doing here the metric system is so much easier to use.
July 21st, 2008 at 23:34
Agreed … utter nonsense.
The Telegraph link did not work* for me, but a Google search turned up a number of places with the same wording of the story, which does indeed point to the press simply reprinting a Tory press release instead of doing their own research.
Interestingly enough, though, The Register did add this part on their own:
“Before you all start choking on your beef and oyster pies and despairing for Olde England, we should point out that the use of the hectare will be obligatory only “when land is being registered”. So, old boys accustomed to chewing the fat over farm gates can rest assured that discussing Farmer Giles’ two acres of wheat will not result in them being arrested by roving EU enforcement operatives disguised as bicycle-borne French onion sellers.
Just to be on the safe side, though, please note that the acre is now better *described* as 0.4047 hectares, or 194.78 NanoWales.”
With Conservatives complaining how Brussels is interfering with British life, what theme will they latch onto once the USA converts to metric. Those meddling Yanks who weren’t satisfied to throw off Crown rule in 1776 and must now once again assert their arrogance by burying ancient British tradition in a sea of “Made in USA” metric?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:25
Listening to a story on BBC Radio 4 recently about the investing in agricultural land. Land prices were quoted per acre. But when they started discussing land yields and costs they spoke about per hectare. This is complete nonsense. How can we possibly make decisions and judgements based on such a ridiculous muddle.
July 22nd, 2008 at 16:16
Lets ban the acre! I am 67 and have not used the absurd and antiquated rag-bag of imperial units since I was 18. I would also bet serious money that most people stopped in the street and asked to define an acre would be unable to do so; the ‘imperialists’ don’t even know their own ‘system’. I would further submit that those who mindlessly wish to retain the acre NEVER measure or calculate.
There is absolutely no need for such anachronisms. The hectare, on the other hand, is sensibly defined as an area of 10 000 square metres (imagine a field 100 m by 100 m).
It is high time that we completed the changeover to SI (metric) units and got rid of the terrible muddle we have in this country with a mixture of imperial and metric units being used daily. Over 95% of the people on this planet are metric. Why is Britain always living in the past? We owe this to our children and all future generations.
Continuing as we are is expensive, confusing, time-consuming, and even dangerous!
Those still not convinced should visit the website of the UK metric association (www.ukma.org.uk).
July 23rd, 2008 at 13:20
It is newspapers like the Daily Mail and Telegraph which helped persuade me to leave Britain at the age of 21 with my degree education and live in more progressive countries. After 9 years in Ireland I am now emigrating to Australia, to join many hundreds of thousands of Britons now living in one of the most metric countries in the world, funny how everyone manages perfectly. Australia switched to metric because it is a better system, nothing to do with EU policies….
July 24th, 2008 at 07:38
So you like the metric system? You are free to use it. But why the desire to impose it across the board on everyone. Nice to see some older people can use metric, I am 25 and prefer imperial. I am 6ft tall, I weigh 14 stone. Are you going to ban me from describing myself that weigh.
As for knowing about acres, easy it is a chain (22yds = 1 cricket pitch) by a furlong (220 yds = 10 cricket pitches). As easy to picture as 100m (one race track) as I watch aa lot more cricket!
July 26th, 2008 at 17:28
At school we used to be told that The Times was one of the best newspapers in the world. But as it stoops to such ‘ tabloid’ lies at present, this is no longer the case. The word ‘akker’, which means ‘acre’ if literally translated to English is used in Germany and The Netherlands meaning a field for growing crops. An akker can measure an hectare or whatever. The Telegraph link is back. The article in the Mail is followed by a number of reactions which are fit to make the angels weep.
July 27th, 2008 at 16:46
The muddle that exists in the UK has everything to do with the fact that the English are not as insightful as the Europeans were 200 years ago. There was never any attempt to banish the old systems, but in order for metric to gain the upper hand and any type of rebellion over the removal of the old units to be minimal some type of compromise had to made.
The old unit names, and not the units themselves, were allowed to continue on to this very day and at the same time making the metric system the agreed standard, simply by redefining all the old units to equal something round in metric.
The pounds became 500 g, the pints became half litres, the inches became 25 mm, the feet 300 mm, the ells became metres, etc. In some cases the old names, like the foot, quart, mile did die away. The inch survives as trade names in plumbing, monitors, TVs and anywhere where the dimension is not exact.
Throughout history new kings and rulers changed the lengths and sizes of units to fit their whims. The muddle in England would end swiftly if those old unit names were either removed from legal status and allowed to change on their own to slang terms for rounded metric units, or were to be legally redefined as a slang term for a rounded metric unit.
The acre can either become 4000 m^2 exactly, which it can then be easily measured as 200 m x 20 m or as 0.5 ha, where it would be 200 m x 25 m. this way land registry and official measuring can be done in metric and for those stuck on old names, an easy conversion can be made.
This is exactly how it is done elsewhere and no muddle or problems result. Everything is officially measured in metric and old unit names exist from time to time as an afterthought. I don’t understand why the English can’t learn from other people’s examples.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:21
On the day that the Times published this nonsense in its “Thunderer” column, there appeared in its “The Knowledge” supplement a comment about the late Charles Wheeler:
“He put fact before effect, thought before impact, intelligence before emotion; because he put us, his audience, before himself, the intermediary”.
We do not expect the originators of the story to follow these principles, but I do expect better of The Times. Thankfully, it did publish on 25 July a letter from the Commission setting out the facts.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:17
Dan’s is effectively suggesting that the UK introduces a system equivalent to the Napoleonic unités usuelles. One of the fundamental differences between Napoleonic France and Modern Britain is that Napoleonic France was essentially an agricultural society where the principal purpose of units of measure was for trade, whereas Modern Britain is an industrial society where different units of measure are used both for trade and for communication physical dimensions of objects.
Any legislation that, for example, made one yard equal to one metre (with feet and inches scaled accordingly) or one pound equal to 500 g would have to very carefully worded so that people knew which unit they were talking about – the change over would cause more problems that it would solve unless the word “pound” was only redefined to mean 500 g for specific purposes (for example business transactions where VAT need not be shown). In the case of buying vegetables, this would not be a problem, but imagine the chaos in the clothing industry if suddenly the inch was increased by 9.36%.
Unlike the Napoleon’s France where there merchants were ripping-off the poor by using their own measures rather than metric units or the older “kings measures”, we do not have the luxury of using the halfway house as proposed by Dan.
July 30th, 2008 at 15:36
Dan’s suggestion of a “metric acre” is seriously wrong.
There is no need for an alternative unit of measurement to replicate a medieval strip field, especially since it is only just less than half the proper SI-accepted measure, the hectare. Dan is just repeating the mistake made by the designers of the original, half-hearted British metrication programme: dual measures, long transitional periods, voluntary gradualism, metrication by stealth. It is this approach which has got us into the current mess.
UKMA advocates a “clean break” - in so far as this is still possible, and an end to dual measures, supplementary indications and all the other attempts to protect people from the need for change.
Incidentally, I suspect that the stories of a “metric pound” still in use on the European continent are largely an urban myth. I have travelled in most of western and central Europe for nearly 50 years and never come across it. It isn’t used because it isn’t necessary.
July 30th, 2008 at 23:41
People generally “know” the acre only as an abstract scale for comparison. The sad thing is many think that having some vague concept of an x-acre estate as being relatively large or small constitutes “understanding”.
If they don’t know what a hectare is then they claim not to “understand” it.
It isn’t helped by the fact that a great many people have no proper concept of area and how it is measured (1 in 3 according to a survey result published a few years ago).
If we are going to raise standards of numeracy in the UK then it’s important to use logical units that can form the basis of a proper understanding of things like area. Britain is its own worst enemy in not making the necessary changes to bring this about.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:16
Why does the anti-metric lobby view imperial measurements as a crucial part of the British national identity?
August 2nd, 2008 at 09:29
We in the U.S. , also, are watching national identity and scientific integrity go on a collision course. We are such a nation of standards, especially in healthcare: our Joint Commission is pushing for all pediatric patients to be weighed in kilograms for safety’s sake. So, I countered, why not ALL patients? We all get drugs dosed in milligrams per kilogram of body mass, and the pounds-vs.-kilograms confusion is the same for all ages. We are such worshippers of all things scientific, but when it comes to metrication, my fellow Americans simply “lose it.” I rest my patriotism on the practical expansion of science into our daily lives. THAT is a proud identity to have!
August 3rd, 2008 at 16:33
I think I have been misinterpreted here. I am not calling for a new unités usuelles. If it was my way, all non-SI units would be removed entirely from legal status and allowed to take on whatever value(s) that come along. My point was and still is, that people are caught up on words and not units. Those imperial words will hang on in one form or another until the end of time. People will say pint when they mean a medium sized glass, a pound when they mean a handful, and other such names when they are being vague.
The muddle in the UK exists when people using metric measuring equipment try to measure out something with imperial unit names. However if those names just become recycled for the sake of speech only, to mean a nice rounded metric value, then the confusion and muddle is much less.
In the present situation where a pound is 454 g, a store clerk has to memorize fractions of 454 g in order to fill a patrons order and the shop usually feels compelled to dual price. Dual pricing can end if a pound is informally defined as 500 g and the need to memorize strange numbers comes to an end.
As for the acre, there is no reason an informal speech only definition of 4000 square metres cannot become acceptable for those who are hung up on old unit names.
Despite this, there would be no measuring done or recorded in old units. In industry, there would be only metric units, no imperial afterthoughts.
I hope I made myself clearer this time.
August 3rd, 2008 at 16:44
George Carty Says: “Why does the anti-metric lobby view imperial measurements as a crucial part of the British national identity?”
Because they have no logical reason otherwise and this excuse seems to hit a nerve with those who are insecure and find comfort in customs and practices of their ancestors.
I know of no country or people that have become less of their perceived identity because they adopted metric measures. But I have seen milliards of people world-wide depart from many of their historical traditions and adopt either American, European or other ways that are considered modern, twentieth century or even twenty-first century.
How often, other then festivals or for the tourists, do you ever see people dressing in traditional garb or eating only their historical cuisine. Some do, but many don’t. Indian women tend to still dress in Saris, but the men dress western.
The British themselves have adopted many Americanisms, yet they are still British. If the BWMA and others are so hung-up on traditions, why don’t they campaign against other more outwardly attacks on traditions?
August 3rd, 2008 at 22:12
I am going to stick my neck out here slightly and suggest that no country that has adopted metric as the official system of measurement has, at the same time, legally redefined imperial or other non-metric unit names to represent rational metric quantities. 500 ml pints or 500 g pounds are purely colloquial wherever they occur.
If an informal 4000 square metre acre ever does come to pass it will be the result of approximate conversions during a transition period or for the handling of historic data.
Deliberate advocacy in the other hand is quite a different matter and it would be unwise for prometric campaigners to incorporate it into their strategy. The logical/mathematical consistency of metrc units and the naming system must remain as the focal point. Recycling old unit names would not be consistent with the main arguments for a single system nor would it appease the sceptics.
August 6th, 2008 at 13:10
In response to PhilH, both the French and Chinese have. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesures_usuelles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_units_of_measurement
Germany may have made the change legally after 1842:
http://home.fonline.de/fo0126/geschichte/groessen/mas1.htm
However, the recycled non-metric units are not legal in trade and are not supported:
http://www.ptb.de/en/publikationen/download/einheiten-e.pdf
The pfund (500 g) has not been a legal unit since 1884 (see page 5).
There may be others. Of course doing this prolongs the use of the old unit names among those who are comfortable with the names, but it does allow the rest of the economy to move on by eliminating old measuring equipment and the need to dual label and dual price.
It would seem though that metrication has eliminated most of the old units and only one or two, such as the pound linger on. The “inch” (UK/US version) has been introduced in many countries as a trade name for describing TV/Monitor viewing areas and in such areas as plumbing. Except that in plumbing, products are sold and measured in metric and the inch is just used as a non-measured trade name for the size of pipe and fittings. Yet, the names don’t apply to any actual size.
I’ll stick my neck out and say that in no country that has recycled old names in this fashion will there be found dual scales or dual pricing. This saves enormous cost.
As I said, whatever the old unit names become recycled to, they should never be legal and all non-SI units should be completely removed from legal status under the WMA.
It would be nice if everyone just moved forward, but there are those that just can’t or won’t and they will demand a compromise. Since the squeaky wheel always gets the oil, they will be given what they want. All the rest of us can hope for is that it doesn’t interfere with our rights to be exposed to a complete metric experience in the job and in the market.