“Give ’em an inch” episode on BBC’s Word of Mouth

Earlier this week (Tuesday 18/9), BBC Radio 4 aired an interview on the “Word of Mouth” programme where Michael Rosen and Laura Wright spoke to maths writer Rob Eastaway about customary measures. They discussed the history behind them, why they are still used in the UK and their own stories of using customary units. One interesting one was the fact that the denier system used for the weight of tights is based on the pennyweight, with the same word origin as denarius (penny).

You can find the interview on the BBC website here. You can also find the episode here on Apple Podcasts.

Rob posted an accompanying blog post before the show here.