Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    for supplemental information, see also:
    
    JOYOFLEX
    321 - Obscure Measures, anyone?
    639 - New Measurements
    
    -Jody
    
    

    So what are inches and pounds?

    For some  amusement, you might check out the unix command "units".
    It  does  most  any  unit  conversion  you  could  ask for (except
    Farenheit to Celcius), and many you've never heard of. It also has
    the currency conversion data for sometime in 1980. A few examples:

township	36 square miles
strike		 2 bushels
thermie		10^6 calories

    For more, look through /usr/lib/units on most unix systems.  

    
    I just read this one today in PICA::GARDENING: a Scoville.  It
    evidently is the unit by which the incendiary powers of hot peppers 
    are measured.  It didn't appear to be a joke.
    
    (If you want to read some real macho noting, check out the hot pepper
    note -- it might be the Habanero note -- I think it's 1400.  And before
    I go, I'd like to send out a big "Hi there" to a read-only noter friend 
    of mine, with a smile.  :-) You know who you are.) 
    
    CQ

    Yeah, but where does it come from?  A grain comes from the average
    weight of a grain of wheat.
    
    Actually, there are 437 grains in an ounce which would make it 1/6992
    of a pound.  I wasn't going to enter this as it hardly strikes me as
    Wommanotes material, but when I went to check on the figure I discoverd
    that ALL of the Webster's dictionaries in the vacinity of my office
    have it incorrectly listed as .002083 oz   (~480grains/oz.). What they
    mean is .002283oz.  I was so shocked that I just had to tell someone.
    
    - M

    Grain is also a term used in Pharmacology, in fact that is the way 
    pain killers and such used to be prescribed.  If you look at an aspirin
    bottle, it still will usually say "5 grains".
    
    E Grace

    Sorry, there are 437.5 grains in an ounce, not 437.
    
    

    According to  the  units  database,  a  grain is 1/7000 pound, and
    there  are 480 grains in an apothecary ounce. (An apothecary pound
    is 12 apothecary ounces.)

--David

    Another old one is 'el'. I don't know it's origin, but as fas as I know
    it is short for the Dutch 'elleboog' (elbow). It's approximately 60 cm,
    and corresponds with the length from the top of the middle finger till
    the elbow. It was used by market-salesmen for measuring
    textiles/ribbons etc.
    
    Lindy
    

    It occured to me that the 7000 (437.5) vs 437.0 is probably the result
    of some redneck rounding stuff off.
    
    As for 437 vs 480--- nevermind.  Time for a dictionary that points this
    out.  
    
    There's 437 redneck grains in a redneck oz.
    
    - M

    
    Isn't the bridge over the Charles River near MIT marked off in units of
    some MIT student? I forget the student's name but I think it was some
    fraternity stunt from the 60s, and there was an article in the Globe
    not too long ago about how he returned 25 years later and remeasured
    the bridge in units of himself.
    
    D.

    SMOOTS

I think his name was "Moot".

-Hamp

re .13

Yep, I think it was 'Smoots' not 'Moot'

-Hamp

    .16 -
    
    I seem to remember it was the student himself and not his son who
    returned, but maybe the point's smoot...
    
    :-}
    
    Anyway, thanks,
    
    D.
    

    The son of Smoot did visit the bridge, but when they rebuilt the bridge
    Smoot himself returned for a remeasuring. Smoot Jr is indeed taller
    than his father.
    
    Bonnie

    G'Day,
    
    	How do you remember all these strange measures that are so totally
    unrelated to each other????
    
    David (Who's glad to live in Metric Australia)
    

    G'day � ,
    
    
    Any nation that can handle pints pounds  ounces feet miles and B cups
    can handle anything.... ;-)
    
    
    
    derek
     who also lives in metric Australia, but understands these things
    (probably because he's old enough ;-)   )
    
    
     

My favorite-

some basic math to develop the relations.

2 weeks = 1 fortnight (we all know that!)
1 barrel = 31 gals. (fermented beverage type)

1 firkin = 1/4 barrel = 7 3/4 gals.

3 7/8 gals. / week = 1 firkin / fortnight (obviously, not enough)

    In Federalist (and probably earlier) times, a valid measure for cloth
    was a nail.  A nail is equal 2 1/4 inches.  I love it.
    
    Dondi

    maybe this belongs in the true confessions note but...
    
    I still don't understand the relationship of feet and yards to 
    'rods' and 'acres' and 'square miles'. (I understand the last,
    it's the middle two that throw me.) And then there's 'chains'
    and 'sections'. sheesh! 

    re .24
    
    'chains' here in the UK have something to do with the dimensions of
    a cricket pitch (don't ask me!) I'll try and get some more details
    tonight and post them here tomorrow.
    
    Gilla 
    (who's German and after 12 years in the UK still doesn't understand
    cricket.)
    

    
    womanpower
    

    Never heard 'womanpower' as a unit of measure. Did read
    somewhere of a 'milli-Helen', that being the beauty needed
    to launch a single ship.

    
    .30 -
    
    Exactly; you've heard of "manpower" though, haven't you?
                                                      

womanpower

(warning, sexism follows:)


1 womanpower = 3 manpower

Also meansured in units of mountains moved/hour.

:-)

D!

>    <<< Note 416.16 by VMSSG::NICHOLS "Herb: CSSE support for VMS at ZK" >>>
>                    -< Is there a tech grad in the house? >-
>
>    I sort of remember the distance across the bridge (which by the way
>    for some strange reason was called the Harvard bridge when I was a boy)...

  As I've heard the story, they were going to name the bridge the M.I.T.
  Bridge, but when the civil engineering students took a close look at
  the bridge, they were so appalled by its shody design and construction
  that they got it named after Harvard instead.

                                   Atlant

  And before anybody every gets any wrong ideas, no, I'm no tech grad.

                                   Atlant

    re .31 >Exactly; you've heard of "manpower" though, haven't you?
    
    Touch� ! (I even worked for a temp agency called 'Manpower, Inc')
    
    Simply didn't make the connection. And now that I think of it,
    there's 'man-hours' but I've never run across 'woman-hours'.
    
    Dana

    A chain  is  66  feet  (as  opposed  to a cord, which is 128 cubic
    feet.)

    
    re: back a few...
    
    a 'rod' is 5.0292 meters
    
    didn't a foot used to be 'the kings foot' which of course varied
    from king to king...and and inch was the length of the kings
    index finger between the first and second knuckle???
    
    deb
    

    re .38 >a 'rod' is 5.092 meters
    
    Please Deb fertheluvvapete don't talk metric to me :-) I'm 
    allready confused!

    Nah.  An inch is three grains of barley laid end to end.
    
    							Ann B.

	1 rod	16.5 feet
	4 rods	1 chain

As I vaguely recall, 1 rod is the width of a typical New England back
road (such as Rt 117).

My favorite unit of distance measurement, uniquely American, is the "hour"
as in "it's 4� hours between Boston and New York City."

Martin.

    Actually, hour  as  a  unit  of  distance is incomplete. I specify
    distance in dollars and hours. Unfortunately this is a poor metric
    as a single distance can be specifyed as several different dollar,
    hour pairs depending on the method of travel.

	... that distance is measured in six-packs.


						--D

    G'day,
     Lets see if we can explain a few imperial things...
    
    One inch was the length of the King's thumb top joint.
    12 inches = 1 foot
    3 feet  = 1 yard
    22 yards = 1 chain
    
    10 chains = 1 furlong ( a furrowlong was the distance a plough horse
    (or ox) could pull a plough in a given time = 220 yards)
    8 furlongs = 1 mile. = 1760 yards = 5280 feet = 63360 inches.
    
    A rod, pole or perch is an area of 1 square chain as I recall
    ( but those I forget) which = 1/10 acre.
    
    An acre is 4840 square yards or 220 yards by 22 yards or a furlong by a
    chain. or about the size of a soccer field. (100 yards by 50y)
    
    A cricket pitch was 22 yards between stumps.
    
    An English halfpenny was one inch in diameter
    5 english pennies weighed an ounce
    
    there are 16 ounces in a pound avoirdupois (french to have peas?)
    there are 12 ounces in a pound troy (gold weight)
    
    There are 20 ounces of pure water in an english pint, hence a pint of
    pure water weighs a pound and a quarter. A gallon has 8 pints and hence
    weighs 10 pounds, except in the US where a pint has 16 ounces and
    weighs a pound. A gallon in the US weighs 8 pounds. 
    
    A cubic foot of water weighs 62.25 pounds(uk)approx but I may be corrected here.
    and hence = 6.25 gallons.
    
    (quick calculation....  or how to make metric work for you...
    
    1 inch=2.54 cm. 12 inches = 30.48 cm
    1 cubic foot = (30.48*30.48*30.48)/1000 litres.= 28.316846 l
    a litre weighs 2.2 pounds * 28.316846 = 62.29706 pounds.
    
    end of qc )
    
    derek
    
    
    
    
    
    

	There are tecno-weenies with a sense of humour....


$ MCR SYSGEN
SYSGEN> SHOW TIMEPROMPTWAIT
SYSGEN>^Z
$



				Kbear

    re: "there are 16 ounces in a pound avoirdupois (french to have peas?)
    there are 12 ounces in a pound troy (gold weight)"
    
    But do not for one minute think that the ounces in the above statements
    are the same.  The troy or apothecary ounce is 31.103 grams whilst the
    avoirdupois ounce is 28.349 grams.
    
    On a lighter side, I now understand the difference between british
    and american pints.  20 ounces of pure water in a brit pint but
    20 ounces of charles river water in an american pint which makes
    a smaller volume which would equal only 16 ounces of  pure water...
    No?  Oh, well, I thought I understood it. :-)
    
    Actually because the ounces are all screwed up, the british 20 ounce
    pint is only about 6/5 bigger than an american 16 ounce pint.
    
    Noone has mentioned the gill which was 5 brit fluid ounces or
    half a brit cup or 1/4 a brit pt.  I've been told that one can
    buy american measuring cups in Britain.  Probably the ones that
    have metric stuff on "the other side" which is good if your left
    handed, etc.
    
    ed

    does anyone know what a "gill" is?  it's a volume measure, applied to
    liquids, I have a book by the "old woodsman", aka Nessmuk, that uses
    the term in discussing camp cooking.
    
    and how the heck much is a peck o'peppers?  is it related to bushels?
    
    and then there's that measure made famous in my husband's family by his
    mother: the Speck.  As in,
    	"Have just a speck more stuffing, there's just a speck left!"

Re: .45

-d:

> All of this leads me to wonder for the several-millionth time why the
> hell the US holds so tenaciously to a mishmash of obsolete measurement
> systems that cost us billions of dollars in trade imbalance.

  Uhh, because Metric is a well-know communist plot, another scheme
  by left-wing radical lesbian feminist one-world government types
  to confuse good upstanding American youth, so as to render them
  incapable of performing arithmetic and simple measurements such
  as knowing how big 6 inches is.

                                   Atlant

    G'day,
     Re -.a_couple
    
    there are 4 gills to a pint. so to me, being English, there are 5 fl oz
    to a gill.
    
    there again, according to Murphy,  units will always be expressed inthe
    most inconvenient form
    like acceleration in furlongs per fortnight�
    
    
    derek

    Gills are important, as teh standard drink in Ireland is 1/6 gill.

    A useful  constant:  pi  seconds in a nanocentury. It's remarkably
    accurate.  Also, the speed of light is one ft/nanosecond.

    In re: .51
    
    Furlongs per fortnight would only measure velocity.
    
    

    G'day
    >>like acceleration in furlongs per fortnight�
                                                 ^ there is a superscript 2
    here.......
    
    
    pi is 3.142, a nanocentury is 3.1536 seconds  (based on 365 day years)
    (or 3.15576 based on 365.25 day years
    
    or .367% error in the former case.
    
    assuming you live to 3 score years and ten, @ pi sec/ncentury, 
     you would be 32.22 hours younger.....(or is that older??)
    
    
    in Australia, there is a quantity called 'fluey dancers'
    
    there are 20 fluey dancers to a pint.....
    
    
    
    derek
    ps
    a score is 20
    there are 4 quires to a ream
    an increase in sound level of 3 decibels is 6 times louder (?)
     
    
    

An order of magnitude ?  How much is that?

    re: .57
    
    I thought an "order of magnitude" was a factor of 16 for programmers and
    a factor of 8 for REAL programmers.
    
    - M

>          <<< Note 416.52 by SMURF::BINDER "Recherche du Sox perdu" >>>
>                          -< It's common knowledge! >-

> Should I understand by this that we still use these asinine
> measurement systems because it's the manly, red-blooded American
> thing to do?
    
-d:

  That's certainly one possible reason.  It's been years since "We use
  our old system of measures because it makes good economic sense" went
  out of fashion as the reason.  As I understand it, we're now one of
  two countries left on the planet with the old system of measures and
  the other country is not exactly a major power.

                                   Atlant

I believe "skosh" comes from the Japanese "skoshi" which means "little".

	-- Charles

    A nautical  mile  is  one  of  the more sensible units -- it's one
    minute of lattitude.  That makes life easier on navigators.

    G'day
    >A nautical  mile  is  one  of  the more sensible units -- it's one
    >minute of lattitude.  That makes life easier on navigators.
    
    just to nit a while....
    It's a minute of arc on any Great Circle, ie all lines of Longitute,
    The Equator and any of the infinite number of other Great Circles. That
    is assuming the world is round, rather than the oblate spheroid, we
    know it to be....
    
    Actually, since the imperial quantities were born of use, rather than
    academia, they are of practical size. When measuring say a window
    frame, its size in inches is easily understood and perceived. When
    measured in mm, it is hard to visualise; measured in cm, the only
    available fractions are .1s ie mm, whereas in inches we can freely be
    as accurate as we can measure. (given that carpenters dont use
    micrometers....)
    
    and saying my son is 6feet 2 inches is workable - he may be 6 ft 2.0398
    in, but we dont need to know it that accurately to perceive how tall he
    is. 1870mm is too accurate and 187cm gives no chance...
    
    
    IMHO, naturellment!
    
    
    derek
    
    

    My favorite unit of measure:

        The barn-megaparsec.

    It's the volume of a box that is about the cross section of a proton
    and 3.26 million light years long.  It works out to a cup or two.
    Astrophysicists use it to estimate the probability of particle
    collisions in deep space.


    My least favorite unit of measure:

        BTUs per pound-mass degree rankine

    It's the unit of heat capacity to non-metric persons.

    G'day,
    
     My most favourite measure...
    
    place fingers out in front to apparently indicate 'a  little' distance
    - from outside of one finger - all the way round the world to the back of
    the other finger how much the familty love each other... That much..
    
    
    least favourite measure - the one that spins under my feet and says
    'one at a time please'
    
    
    derek 

    Anybody have a conversion for serving spoon (or table spoon) to
    Tablespoon?  
    
    How's about coffee spoon (tea spoon) to teaspoon?
    
    Nancy

                     three teaspoons = one tablespoon
    
    					andrew

    
    My daughter used to measure time in "whiles". If we asked her when
    something was going to happen, she'd say, "In about six whiles."
    
    D.

    
    	Infinitube...
    
    	The distance I feel like smashing my fist through my workstation
    	tube when I see someone goading others at a time when most of us
    	are damn reluctant to fight back.
    

I've always liked the �sagan� as a unit of size, eg "There were sagans of 
people at the beach" or "there's about a one-in-sagan chance of that idea
working!!!"

 One Sagan, of course, is 'billions and billions'...

					Nigel

    
    what about a "pinch" ?
    

	I don't know if it differs from a "coffee spoon", but

		1 coffee measure = 2 Tablespoons

	I've sometimes seen a pinch defined as 1/8 teaspoon.	


	A few other obscure measures 

		1 pennyweight = 24 grains
		1 hundredweight = 112 pounds
		1 kip = 1000 pounds
		1 barrel = 31.5 gallons
		1 hogshead = 2 barrels
		1 butt = 2 hogsheads
		1 puncheon (wine) = 84 gallons
		1 puncheon (beer) = 72 gallons
		1 tun = 8 barrels

		1 palm = 3 inches
		1 hand = 4 inches
		1 span = 9 inches
		1 cubit = 18 inches
		1 pace = 2.5 feet
		1 ell = 4 feet
		1 fathom = 5.5 yards
		1 pole, rod = 2 yards
		1 furlong = 220 yards
		1 cable = 120 fathoms
		1 league = 3 miles  

    There's always the "Cajun teaspoon", used when measuring Tabasco
    sauce, as follows (example assumes recipe calls for 2 tsp):

    1. Hold teaspoon over bowl with other food
    2. Open top of Tabasco sauce, start pouring into teaspoon
    3. When teaspoon is full, invert teaspoon to empty its contents
       into the bowl. Do *not* change the orientation of the bottle
       of Tabasco when doing this, so it keeps pouring.
    4. Repeat for second teaspoon called for. (Or third or whatever)
    5. Only straighten Tabasco bottle when all teaspoons are accounted
       for.

    To see a master at work doing this, watch Justin Wilson on TV.

    Cathy, a fathom is 6 feet (or 1.83 meters), not 5.5 yards.

	Sharon (who's a fathom tall...)

    .75 was confused.
    A fathom = 2 yards.
    A rod or pole is 5.5 linear yards or 30.25 square yards.
    
    Nobody mentioned the em and the en.  Doesn't anyone do crossword
    puzzles?
    
    ed

    But, Ed, the em and en depend on the font and the point size.
    
    point - one twelfth of a pica (ISO 6429 declares one seventy-second
    of an inch)
    
    pica - .166000 inches
    
    corps - .178 inches
    
    didot - one twelfth of a corps
    
    decididot - .0376 mm. as ISO 6429 declares
    
    						Ann B.

	My favorite is the Scruple.  I like to draw the symbol for
scruples on a paper and give it to deserving souls who are missing some
scruples.   

	8{) 8{) 8{)   Kbear

    re:.79, sure the em and en depend on the type measure but they are also
    more ambiguous than "pint," "gill," etc. and less ambiguous than
    "ounce."  That's what makes them so much fun.  I've gotten at least 3
    different definitions over the years, all from printers.
    
    Are points now 72 pts/inch?  They were a little bit smaller 12 years
    ago (the difference was small indeed).  Now, where's that pica pole?
    
    ed

    The ISO point is 1/72 inch.  (This is what Digital, Adobe, etc.
    use.)  The really, truly printer's point remains unchanged.
    
    						Ann B.

    
    A summer camp in Michigan I attended as a boy by two brothers named
    Furlong, one a year ahead of me, one a year behind.  They immediately
    and perpetually became known as Little Furlong and Big Furlong, and I
    don't think anyone learned their usual first names.
    
    		- Bruce

    
    here's one I just learned about - the Dalton.  It's the mass of a
    single hydrogen atom....
    
    -Jody