I'm a slob, and have had enough of it.

[Jon Senior]

Tony Raven wrote:
> As Voltaire might have said "I may not agree with what he says, but I
> shall defend to the death his right to say it while reserving the right
> to kill file him."

The right to say what you want, does not include the right to an audience.

I've read something similar as an attributed quote but I can't seem to
find it.

Jon

 

[Jon Senior]

Danny Colyer wrote:
> I find it shocking precisely *because* the stone is the unit most
> commonly used in the UK for measuring human weight.
>
> Over the past 7 or 8 years I've started meeting people (usually at least
> 10 years younger than me) who are completely unfamiliar with imperial
> units other than the pint and the mile. It always takes me aback
> somewhat. It seems strange that people are abandoning some really
> useful units [1].

As has been noted before, they're only useful because people are used to
them. Most joiners work wholly in millimetres. It's perfectly natural to
them to refer to "one thousand and five" as a meaningful figure, which
the rest of us might have to spend some time translating. I was brought
up with metric measurements, and find the parallels between different
units easy to understand. Imperial gives me a headache because every
scale has a different base.

The thing that always surprised me, was how we ended up with these
things in the first place. Long before I understood the concept of
metric (Or indeed "units"), I was well aware that I could count to ten
before I ran out of fingers. Base 10 seems a very "natural" system as a
consequence.

<snipped - a truly scary mix of measurements>

> And the reasons for liking metric measurements for some purposes are
> accuracy and ease of calculation. A millimetre is a finer measure than
> 1/16" and it's much easier to perform calculations with metric units
> than imperial. To my mind that's actually a good reason for continuing
> to use imperial units some of the time, as well. It's good for
> developing and maintaining mental arithmetic skills.

The only benefit I ever saw was that having metric drill bits at work
has forced me to get used to fractions again. That doesn't stop me from
disliking the continual changing of the denominator though!

> [1] The sooner the Fahrenheit scale is consigned to the dustbin of
> history the better, though. I have no problems converting between F and
> C, but I'd rather not have to.

I agreed entirely, except that I don't even bother converting. If
someone tries to tell me a temperature in F I ask them to repeat it in
"real numbers".

Jon

 

[Jon Senior]

half_pint wrote:
> Yes having an ISP delist me simply because I am more clever than
> you are is pathetic.

Not sure what this was in response to, but ITYM "cleverer". But then
you're clearly not, so should just stick with your original 1/2 wit.

Jon

 

[David Martin]

Danny Colyer wrote:

> Erm, no idea. I'd be quite interested to know that as well. Similarly,
> why are there 16oz to a lb,

For this I will hazard the joy of divisibility. As it is a unit of
weight it is easy to divide in half till it matches, divide in half
again and so on to get any subdivision of a pound you want with only a
pound weight and a balance.

> why 12" to a foot

inch is approximately the length of the last joint of the thumb.
12 inches is approximately the length of a foot and is a dozen, which is
easily counted on one hand by using each segment of the fingers and the
thumb as a cursor.
Liekwise a gross can be counted on two hands in base dozen, one hand for
each digit.


> and why 1760 yards to a mile?

I used to know this, maybe google has the answer..

Hmm, a mile is eight furlongs, or furrow lengths, the length a horse
could pull a plough along a furrow before needing to stop.

A furlong is 40 poles and each pole is 16.5 feet, giving 660 feet per
furlong.

This was a measure derived originally from teh roman mile which was the
far more logical thousand roman paces, each roman pace being five roman
feet. roman feet are smaller than imperial feet and a roman mile is
about 0.9 of a statute mile.

The reason it is called a statute mile is because until the middel ages
a mile was an approximate measure of distace between towns until its
length was fixed by statute. As people had a very fixed idea bout short
distances (comparing your field sizes of the order of a furlong was very
important, the precise distance to the next town less so) the length of
a mile was fixed by statute at eight furlongs, or 5280 feet. Eight makes
it easily divisible into halves, quarters and eighths.

...d

 

[Danny Colyer]

David Martin wrote:
<good stuff about imperial units>

Thanks David. I was fairly sure that feet and inches meant something on
a human scale, as opposed to the metre being one ten millionth of the
distance from either pole to the equator.

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

 

[Danny Colyer]

I wrote:
>>It seems strange that people are abandoning some really
>>useful units [1].

and Jon Senior responded:
> As has been noted before, they're only useful because people are used to
> them.

True, but it would be a shame if people became unused to them. My point
was that I'm used to metric and imperial, having grown up with both, but
I find imperial more intuitive for most things. Which suggests to me
that imperial units really must have something going for them that
metric doesn't.

Or it may, of course, be just that I grew used to using imperial units
at home long before I got to secondary school and started doing lots of
stuff with metric units (I really don't remember doing anything with
units of any sort at primary school, though I remember always being 2 or
3 books ahead of everyone else in maths).

> Imperial gives me a headache because every
> scale has a different base.

<G>
That's part of its charm for me.

> I agreed entirely, except that I don't even bother converting. If
> someone tries to tell me a temperature in F I ask them to repeat it in
> "real numbers".

IME that just doesn't work. There are still so many people around who
don't understand centigrade.

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

 

[David Martin]

Danny Colyer wrote:

> True, but it would be a shame if people became unused to them. My point
> was that I'm used to metric and imperial, having grown up with both, but
> I find imperial more intuitive for most things. Which suggests to me
> that imperial units really must have something going for them that
> metric doesn't.
>
I too am a product of a late seventies, early eighties education and can
cope happily with most units. I was born before decimalisation but
didn't get pocket money till afterwards.

> Or it may, of course, be just that I grew used to using imperial units
> at home long before I got to secondary school and started doing lots of
> stuff with metric units (I really don't remember doing anything with
> units of any sort at primary school, though I remember always being 2 or
> 3 books ahead of everyone else in maths).
You and me both. I remember being most put out when the teacher wouldn't
accept my answer of 'two' to the question 'what is the smallest number
of coins needed to pay 99p?'[1]

>> Imperial gives me a headache because every scale has a different base.
<G>
> That's part of its charm for me.

I find imperial really good becasue it has different scales. It does
make one think more flexibly.

For example, until I mentioned counting to a gross[2] on the fingers of
two hands, how many post decimalisation people would have thought of it?
It is allegedly very common on the indian subcontinent.

...d

[1] it was accepted that a pound note was a 'coin' in these
circumstances as pound coins[3] didn't exist until many years later.

[2] Strictly one can count to 156 on two hands.

[3] There had been special issues of higher value coins though; IIRC
there was a 5 pound coin once. Could have been a jubilee thing. A
numismatist would be able to tell us.

 

[Dave Kahn]

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 23:05:11 +0000, congokid
<[email protected]> wrote:

>With most follow ups my newsreader helpfully renders the quoted bits in
>red (each line prefixed with a >) and the new interleaved additional
>text in black, so it's extremely easy in a properly trimmed post, which
>usually appears in a single screen, to see what's new and what's being
>referred to.
>
>Quoted parts from before the previous post are in other colours and
>preceded by >> (or more >).

Mine also renders them in different colours. However, it's a case of
where the eye is focusing. A short top post in black tends to merge
with the attribution line ("On Mon 20 Dec...." etc.)

--
Dave...

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live. - Mark Twain

 

[Tony W]

"David Martin" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>
> > and why 1760 yards to a mile?
>
> I used to know this, maybe google has the answer..
>
> Hmm, a mile is eight furlongs, or furrow lengths, the length a horse
> could pull a plough along a furrow before needing to stop.
>
> A furlong is 40 poles and each pole is 16.5 feet, giving 660 feet per
> furlong.
>
> This was a measure derived originally from teh roman mile which was the
> far more logical thousand roman paces, each roman pace being five roman
> feet. roman feet are smaller than imperial feet and a roman mile is
> about 0.9 of a statute mile.
>
> The reason it is called a statute mile is because until the middel ages
> a mile was an approximate measure of distace between towns until its
> length was fixed by statute. As people had a very fixed idea bout short
> distances (comparing your field sizes of the order of a furlong was very
> important, the precise distance to the next town less so) the length of
> a mile was fixed by statute at eight furlongs, or 5280 feet. Eight makes
> it easily divisible into halves, quarters and eighths.


I suspect you touch on the reason for the strange bases -- i.e. that the
individual units grew up independently and only later 'firmed up' a
relationship. A Roman Mile was 1000 paces (left-right-left), while a yard
was the distance from some bloke's nose to finger tip.

There is a (probably apocryphal) tale that a US Standards organisation
(maybe the military) suggested redefining the mm such that there would be
exactly 25 to the inch. In previous generations -- pre industrial
revolution certainly -- this would work as no one would be too bothered
about the odd 0.4 mm -- few, if any, would measure that accurately.

You missed the Chain -- 22 yards from your exposition!! 1/10 of a furlong.

T

 

[Tony Raven]

Jon Senior wrote:
> Tony Raven wrote:
>
>> As Voltaire might have said "I may not agree with what he says, but I
>> shall defend to the death his right to say it while reserving the
>> right to kill file him."
>
>
> The right to say what you want, does not include the right to an audience.
>
> I've read something similar as an attributed quote but I can't seem to
> find it.
>

<?>
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be
taken seriously.

Hubert H. Humphrey
</?>

Tony

 

[David Martin]

On 21/12/04 5:52 am, in article [email protected], "Tony W"
<[email protected]> wrote:


> You missed the Chain -- 22 yards from your exposition!! 1/10 of a furlong.

That would be half a dozen poles. And to confuse bases, there are exactly
100 links to a chain.

This then sets the length of a cricket pitch as being 1 chain.

Road distances in civil engineering are described as 'chainage', even though
they are measured in meters.

...d

 

[Tony Raven]

Jon Senior wrote:
> half_pint wrote:
>
>> Yes having an ISP delist me simply because I am more clever than
>> you are is pathetic.
>
>
> Not sure what this was in response to, but ITYM "cleverer". But then
> you're clearly not, so should just stick with your original 1/2 wit.
>
> Jon

ITHM " I am more clever than you are pathetic" which since you are not
pathetic is about right ;-)

Tony

 

[dkahn400]

Tony W wrote:

> A Roman Mile was 1000 paces (left-right-left
And "mille" is of course Latin for a thousand.

--
Dave...

 

[Richard Bates]

On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 09:14:43 +0000, David Martin
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 21/12/04 5:52 am, in article [email protected], "Tony W"
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>> You missed the Chain -- 22 yards from your exposition!! 1/10 of a furlong.
>
>That would be half a dozen poles. And to confuse bases, there are exactly
>100 links to a chain.

Outside the sadly closed Birmingham Town Hall there are some measure
set into the pavement, indicating such lengths as chains, poles,
metres, feet, and other short measures.

It used to be great fun to get ****** and measure oneself. Fortunately
I have now grown up a little.

--
Amazon: "If you are interested in 'Asimov's I-Robot',
you may also be interested in 'Garfield - The Movie'.
... erm, how do they figure that one out?

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, Danny Colyer
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Over the past 7 or 8 years I've started meeting people (usually at
> least 10 years younger than me) who are completely unfamiliar with
> imperial units other than the pint and the mile.  It always takes me
> aback somewhat.  It seems strange that people are abandoning some
> really useful units [1].

No units are 'useful' in themselves. Metric units have the utility that
they are easy to calculate with, although base 8 units would, in my
opinion, be more useful than base 10.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Do not sail on uphill water.
- Bill Lee

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, Danny Colyer
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Erm, no idea.  I'd be quite interested to know that as well. 
> Similarly, why are there 16oz to a lb, why 12" to a foot and why 1760
> yards to a mile?

Because. An inch is the width of your thumb; a foot is the length of
your foot. On a normally proportioned person there are about twelve
thumbwidths to the foot. A mile is a thousand 'steps' (the Romans
considered a step to be the movement of both legs - what we'd consider
two steps); a yard is the length of your outstretched arm. Most
people's arms are longer than their stride, so there are slightly less
than two thousand arm-lengths in a thousand (roman) steps.

There actually aren't 16 ounces in a pound. In apothecaries measure
there are 12; in another obscure but perfectly respectable measure used
in Britain there are 14; and in grocers measure there are 16. An ounce
is an old, traditional small weight unit (I don't know its origin)
which got standardised fairly late, whereas a pound is the weight of
240 silver pennies (also known as 'a pound', although because it's
inconvenient to carry all those silver pennies in your pocket we now
carry paper promisary notes, instead).

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Wise man with foot in mouth use opportunity to clean toes.
;; the Worlock

 

[Colin Blackburn]

Simon Brooke wrote:
> in message <[email protected]>, Danny Colyer
> ('[email protected]') wrote:
>
>>Erm, no idea. I'd be quite interested to know that as well.
>>Similarly, why are there 16oz to a lb, why 12" to a foot and why 1760
>>yards to a mile?
>
> Because. An inch is the width of your thumb; a foot is the length of
> your foot. On a normally proportioned person there are about twelve
> thumbwidths to the foot. A mile is a thousand 'steps' (the Romans
> considered a step to be the movement of both legs - what we'd consider
> two steps)

Orienteers consider a step to be the movement of both legs, Roman or
not. It's easy when step counting while running as the numbers are more
manageable---you're usually pacing out 100m or so---and the counting
rhythm is slower, and so less prone to error.

Colin

 

[Dave Larrington]

Richard Bates wrote:

> It used to be great fun to get ****** and measure oneself. Fortunately
> I have now grown up a little.

Has anyone mentioned the ell yet? Never mind the diffference between
Leftpondian and Imperial, the Scottish ell is 37" and the English ell 45".
Neither should be confused with the German "elle" or the Dutch "el".

I have a vague recollection of seeing an ell measure on a church wall when I
was a small Mr Larrington.

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
World Domination?
Just find a world that's into that kind of thing, then chain to the
floor and walk up and down on it in high heels. (Mr. Sunshine)

 

[Tim]

In article <[email protected]>, half_pint wrote:
> Dont be a **** everyone falsifies their email adress you idiot.
>

No, not everybody does. Using a main email address with good
spam filtering, using a specific address for posting or using
a .invalid domain seem to be the main approaches taken by the cluefull.

http://news.individual.net/faq.html#5.3 is what the news
provider we both seem to be using considers acceptible.
--
Tim.

 

[Tim]

In article <[email protected]>, half_pint wrote:
> Yes having an ISP delist me simply because I am more clever than
> you are is pathetic.
>

Pointing out to a news provider that somebody is not abiding by
the spirit or letter of their rules of use may be childish but not
following their terms does not make you clever either.
--
Tim.