MORE ON MEASUREMENT

First of all, thanks to everyone who offered suggestions to get me out of the “six inch” bind. There were lots of great ideas and I really appreciate you all taking the time and trouble to help out.

I’m really glad I posted this because I discovered that it’s not quite such a problem as I had imagined.

The first hint that “inches” might not be a dead word in UK English came from those of you who pointed out that we still refer to heel height in inches. I don’t understand why that should be, but it’s a fact. Women who were taught entirely in metric still refer to 4” inch heels. Why?

And that’s not all. The dd emailed me to point out that she has no trouble with inches since we still buy our bras that way. (It’s feet she has a problem with – all 30cm of them). It’s true. I treated myself to some new underwear this week and sure enough the ones for the top half come in inches. How weird is that?

Then, having bought some new trousers, I took them to be shortened (oh the joys of being 5’1” whatever that is in metric) and realised that trousers are sold with the inside leg measurement in, you’ve got it, inches.

So my problem was not a problem at all.

Of course there are always the foreign language editions, but I’ll leave the translators to worry about those!