Hartley Neita Hartley Neita
AFTER LIVING a great portion of the 20th century, I now find that many of the habits I grew up with are gone. And it is a little sad to see what has replaced them. I grew most of my life using pounds, shillings and pence. There were also the familiar terms used to describe our money such as the quattie, bit, bob, florin, and the guinea. Soon, songs like "gimme back me shilling wi' de lion 'pon it", and "carry me ackee go-a Linstead market, not a quattie worth sell", will soon be meaningless.
Vain attempts are being made to refer to our new money as a Nanny and a Manley, but these names have not yet made a national impact. Probably never. Sport has also been a tragedy of change. The mile race has been replaced by the 1600 metres. The 100-yard race went by the board years ago. So, too, did the measurement of height in the high jump, pole vault and long jump. Once when an athlete leapt seven feet in the high jump, I could compare it to my height which was some one-foot less. Now, a jump of two metres looks small, figuratively. I still know my height in feet and inches, but have no idea what it is in metres.
'INCH-BY-INCH'
I have not yet applied for my new passport, and I am wondering if when I do I will have to enter my height in the new terminology. Words like pint, quart and gallon have already disappeared. Distances are no longer measured in inches, feet, yards, chains and miles. The phrase "inch-by-inch" is now meaningless, the word "foot" refers to the human appendage and "yard" means the space around one's house. "Chains" are what are used to limit the walk which can be taken by the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. There can no longer be "mileposts", though what these will be replaced with boggles the mind. Could it be "Kilometre Post"? There will be no more "yard sticks". and in what length which is now 22 yards will cricket pitches be measured? And what will happen to the phrase "mile and distance" in horse racing? Weights like ounces, pounds, and tons are also relics of yesterday.
The phrase that Chris Gayle "hit a ton of runs" will soon be meaningless. We may also have to cope with new measurements in time. These are now seconds, 60 of which make a minute, then 60 minutes making a hour, 24 hours making a day, seven days making a week, four weeks making a month and 12 months making a year. The advocates of metrication will soon want these changed. One hundred seconds will make a minute, one hundred minutes will make a hour, twenty hours a day, ten days a week, ten weeks a month, and ten months a year. There will therefore be one hundred weeks each year and one thousand days a year, a long time between birthdays that is, if my mathematical calculations are correct. In which case our life span will be less that the Biblical 70 years.
The calendars we have grown accustomed to over the years will be no more. Two of the present months will have to be dropped. Previous dates we learnt as children will be changed. So that England did not capture Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1655, and Jamaica did not become an independent nation in 1962. History books will have to be re-written.
WOMEN
What I dread most of all, however, is the metrication of our women. We all know what the figure size, 36-24-36, means. We also have grown to know that a girl with those statistics and who is 5'5" tall is the ideal "Miss World". Converting these stats to metric will result in a "Miss World" contestant being measured with a bust of 93.6, waist 67.6, and hips 93.6. She would also be 1.456 metres tall. Now, let me warn Mickey Haughton-James and Kingsley Cooper that the day metric is introduced into the Miss Jamaica (World) and the Miss Jamaica (Universe) contests, will be the day I will be leading a demonstration of men, young and old, protesting with banners and posters, waiting for the television cameras to appear. Lord, oh Lord. Perish the thought!
