OFF: Snow, metric propaganda! :-)

[Carl E. Anderson]

On ons 3 dec 1997 13.17 +0100 "Daniel Wikdahl" <mpj95wid at MC.HIK.SE> wrote:

> I've got to tell you this:
> I'll never learn how much an inch is! 2.2 cm?

     2.54 cm

> And those strange "miles" then... you're writing 'bout how far it is
> from your town to the place where tBS or some other band will play...
> Come on! What's wrong with the metric system?!?
> Inch, yard, feet, pint, quarter pounder cheese etc
> - rubbish from the stone age! :-) :-) :-)

     Yes, but it all makes a lovely logical system if you don't use
decimal notation (and even better if you _do_ use base 12) :)  It's all to
do with dividing things in half or in thirds or in fourths (halves twice).

     A gallon has 4 quarts, each of which has 2 pints, each of which has 4
gills, each of which has 2 tablespoons, each of which has 2 dessertspoons,
each of which has 1 teaspoon (each of which has 2 thimblefuls).

     Or it would be lovely and neat if Edward I of England hadn't buggered
it up by trying to reconcile a variety of local variants rather
gracelessly :)

     A mile _ought_ to have 4800 feet, but thanks to the Statute for
Measuring Land of 1305, a mile has 5280 feet, thanks to compromises on the
length of a foot.  The Imperial foot is 30.48 cm, but the foot _ought_ to
be 33.528 cm.  That way a mile would have 8 furlongs (one furlong being 40
rods, each of 15 feet).
     That's the short and simple explanation anyway :)

     I'll never learn to understand metric temperatures--especially since
people living in East Anglia seem to have a different understanding about
what "hot" and "cold" seem to mean than people did where I grew up :)

     Actually, I think the most sensible temperature scale would make 0
water's freezing point and 100 human body temperature.  That would create
weather reports I could relate to!

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/