When I was bound apprentice, and learned to use my hands,
Folk never talked of measures that came from foreign lands:
Now I'm a British Workman, too old to go to school;
So whether the chisel or file I hold, I'll stick to my three-foot rule.
Some talk of millimetres, and some of kilogrammes,
And some of decilitres, to measure beer and drams;
But I'm a British Workman, too old to go to school,
So by pounds I'll eat, and by quarts I'll drink, and I'll work by my three-foot rule.
A party of astronomers went measuring the earth,
And forty million metres they took to be its girth;
Five hundred million inches, though, go through from pole to pole;
So let's stick to inches, feet and yards, and the good old three-foot rule.
Notes
As a young man Rankine was aware of the growth of metrication which had first been encouraged in France by Napoleon Buonaparte and this was his response.
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Comments
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Poor old Rankine must be turning in his grave at the way metrication has taken hold in Britain today.
many of my students have never heard of yards and quarts.
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