Who prefers traditional units?

[Mary Fisher]

"nightjar .me.uk>"

Same here.

Mary

[Rod]

If you are using wire for telephones, then lb/mile might very well be a useful and pragmatic way of handling it. If, however, you have a bit of wire very much shorter than a mile, how do you measure it? About the only easy way is to measure its diameter (whether with a micrometer-type instrument or a gauge with holes in it).

I suppose that some product today might be described a x palettes per container - meaning that it contains x palettes of some ingredient in the amount of product that fits into a standard shipping container. I couldn't argue with the pragmatism that might make that sensible in a given circumstance. But is is of damn all use outside that circumstance.

There are so many scales for some things - take knitting needles. Metric. US, UK/Canadian. Japanese. And then probably no end of other 'ethnic' and traditional sizes. The UK/Canadian scale manages to use that wonderful kludge - having run out of numbers at 0, it uses 00 and

000. (Is 00 larger or smaller than 0?)

Mind, I do understand that at the larger sizes, differences of less than

1 mm are probably not very significant. At the smaller end, fractions of a millimetre are important. A non-linear scale might very well have its sensible use here rather than having to deal in fractional sizings such as 2.25.

Ahh! A stone contains 14 lb. But a woollen stone contains 15 lb. A butcher's stone has 8 lb. That sort of standardisation?

[Rod]

Am I willing to pay £2.31 for a pack of coffee A? Coffee A is a bit nicer than coffee B at £2.10. Is it 21p nicer? Well if both are in 250g packs, I might decide against. But if coffee A is in a 250g pack and coffee B is in 227g than coffee A is cheaper per gram so no contest.

(Of course, I really want the pack size to be in "mugs of coffee as Rod likes them made" which should include a factor for coffee A being a touch stronger than coffee B.)

[dennis]

"nightjar.me.uk>"

Chuck the book away then as it wasn't the French.

[The Medway Handyman]

I've always wondered why beer is sold in 440ml cans. 500ml I can understand, half a litre, 330 ml, roughly a third of a litre, 568ml - a UK pint.

440ml doesn't convert into anything rational.

[Frank Erskine]

On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 08:53:27 -0000, "Mary Fisher" had this to say:

Exactly.

[Frank Erskine]

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:10:31 +0000, Rod had this to say:

It's a standard for wool people. And for butchers. And so on.

[The Medway Handyman]

Some American bloke actualy makes tape rules calibrated in 'bobs' (I think). Dead serious. I've had a quick Google but can't find his site.

[m1ss_wh1te]

A third set of dimensions is frequently used by experience practictioners and is recorded for general reference below: -

The Gnats System of Measurement

This system has been in use for many,many years for moving and positioning large objects such as Stonehenge and the Pyramids to the latest CNC machine Tools. Lately it has fallen into disuse as no direct metric equivalent to a "smidgen" has been found.

1 Gnats Whisker = 0.000" to 0.005" or less (i.e. a light gap). 2 Gnats Whiskers = 1 Gnats Doodah. 3 Gnats Doodahs = A Gnats. 4 Gnats = a Smidgen. 3 Smidgens = a Little Bit. 2 Little Bits = a Bit. 3 Bits = a Tad. 2 Tads = a Move It (left or right). 5 Move Its = That's the Wrong Way. Too many Wrong Ways = Collect 'P45'.

Found elsewhere on this interweb thingy and too good not to pass on.

[<me9]

Well Napoleon did introduce a decimal week, but it wasn't popular.

[<me9]

454 a US pint, less a bit for short measure.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember m1ss [e-mail] saying something like:

What about the Ba'Hair? Much used measurement in Scottish engineering.

[Rod]

Which is fine when wool people are dealing with wool people, butchers with butchers and so on. But if you (or a wool person) were to visit your local butcher and ask for a stone of chitterlings, you would be pissed off to get just 8 lbs. (Actually, given their disgusting nature, that might be a slight relief.) Really, the butcher has to use 14 lb stones when interfacing with anyone other than a like minded butcher.

[Bob Mannix]

Or the traditional English double firkin:

too firkin long, too firkin heavy, too firkin big to go through the door

[Dave]

I'll bet it converts into profit quite readily though :-(

Dave

[The Medway Handyman]

Found it.

'bobs' to the inch :-)

[Andy Champ]

Older than the Romans.

"Among the great mathematical inventions of the Assyrians were the division of the circle into 360 degrees"

[geoff]

An exaggerated tail ...

[nightjar]

Who, then, in your opinion did originate the metric system, if not the French Academy of Sciences at the request, in 1790, of the National Assembly?

Colin Bignell

[Roger]

The message from "nightjar" contains these words:

That seems to be the widely held view but a search I did found a site

that gave the initial credit for the metric system to a French vicar in 1670 (still French of course) but credited a first mention of a decimal system to Simon Stevin (a Flemish mathematician and engineer) in 1585.

"1790

Thomas Jefferson proposed a decimal-based measurement system for the United States. France's Louis XVI authorized scientific investigations aimed at a reform of French weights and measures. These investigations led to the development of the first "metric" system."

Being a Merkin site Jefferson gets first mention for 1790 but the link to his actual report refers to sources in his possession on the subject. A French one which is only to be expected but also a British one.