a (metric) unit

A tonne is a megagram that is one thousand kilograms. It also known as a metric ton. A ton is either 2240 or 2000 pounds ( 1,016.0469088 or 907.18474 kg) depending on whether you prefer the long or short flavour.

A barleycorn is a third of a inch (this relates to an old definition of the inch).

A scruple is an apothecary unit of mass equal to 20 grains. Note the apothecary grain is the same as the avoirdupois grain and it takes seven thousand of them to make an avoirdupois pound.

The bovate is the amount of land an ox can plough in a year.

The hogshead is the volume of a large cask for wine or beer. Down through the centuries the size seems to have depended on where and what you're measuring ... and as far as I can tell it still does though to a lesser extent.

If it's beer then a hogshead is equal to a barrel and a half or three kilderkins and there are two firkins to the kilderkin. Now in the old days a firkin was sometimes eight, nine and even eight and a half gallons. Of course there have been a number of different gallons too. An imperial beer firkin is nine imperial gallons making an imperial hogshead of beer about 245.49 litres. I don't know whether there is a US beer hogshead.

Then there is the wine hogshead. It once depended not only on where you measure your wine but on what kind of wine you were measuring. Now an imperial hogshead of wine is 70 gallons or about 238.7 litres US wine hogshead is 63 US gallons or about 238.48 litres.

No wonder the metric system was so quick to be adopted around the world.

A US gallon is approximately 0.83 of an Imperial gallon, but why? Is the US mile different from the Imperial mile, and if not, why not? Why change some Imperial measurements but not others? Was there a good reason?

Yes, a US mile is different to an imperial one. That is if you're talking US survey miles and they're only very slightly different. Normally the US uses the same mile, yard, foot and inch as the imperial ones. So why are gallons different?

A few centuries ago there were a great number of gallons in use. The Americans settled on one ... actually two of them (one for wet stuff & the other for dry stuff). The British decided to create a whole new one (for wet and dry stuff).

They reckoned that it would be nice to have a system such that one gallon of water would weigh ten pounds and thus one imperial fluid ounce of water weights one avordupois ounce (under certain thermodynamic conditions). The Americans were independant by this stage and so didn't adopt the new gallon.

Until the fifties the units of length also differed from country to country. Then the UK, US, Australia, Canada, etc. got together and decided on an international definition. This was no big problem because the differences were only slight. However the US did retain its older definition (of 100/3937 metre) for the purpose of surveying.

"Surely the solution is simple.....the EU stops importing goods from the insular Americans. End of.

My mother has a friend who has a sister living in California USA and occasionally she sends stuff over from there and the goods have imperial labels..... with the metric equivalents in brackets! She also sends recipes which Dolly hasn't a hope in hell of understanding. I don't think it's any use the EU expecting the Americans to comply with any stipulation from outside their own borders whatever the issue......the British have traditionally been conservative in the past, but never on a par with the current American version."



It's not that the British are insular in not using Metric measurements - it's just that we are more sensible and down to earth.

We've been using imperial for hundreds of years and it's never caused us any problems. Why change to imperial just because those garlic-smelling Frenchies want us to? Britain is a free country and we'll have whatever measurements we damn well please. If you left-wing Socialist Scots don't like it, you are free to leave the UK and immerse yourself ever deeper into the EU. But don't expect those Euro-weenies on the Continent to subsidy your nation just as the English have for the last 300 years. It'll Scotland helping to subsidise the French and the eastern Europeans.

"We've been using imperial for hundreds of years and it's never caused us any problems. Why change to imperial just because those garlic-smelling Frenchies want us to?"



That should be:

We've been using imperial for hundreds of years and it's never caused us any problems. Why change to metric just because those garlic-smelling Frenchies want us to?

Adam : « It's not that the British are ¤insular¤ in not ¤using¤ ¤Metric¤ ¤measurements¤ - it's just that we are more ¤sensible¤ and down to earth. We've been ¤using¤ ¤imperial¤ for hundreds of years and it's never ¤caused¤ us any ¤problems¤. Why ¤change¤ to ¤imperial¤ ¤just¤ ¤because¤ those garlic-smelling Frenchies want us to? ¤Britain¤ is a free ¤country¤ and we'll have whatever ¤measurements¤ we ¤damn¤ well ¤please¤. If you left-wing ¤Socialist¤ ¤Scots¤ don't like it, you are free to leave the ¤U¤K and ¤immerse¤ yourself ever deeper into the ¤E¤¤U¤. But don't ¤expect¤ those ¤Euro¤-weenies on the ¤Continent¤ to ¤subsidy¤ your ¤nation¤ ¤just¤ as the English have for the last 300 years. It'll Scotland helping to ¤subsidise¤ the French and the eastern ¤Europeans¤. »

Ton français n'est pas si mal...

Uriel
>>>A lot of times it depends on the type of product, also. I was thinking of household products, which are often in some combination of English, French, and/or Spanish, but on medical supplies I often see many more languages -- lots of European ones plus Chinese, Japanese, and occasionally other Asian languages.<<<<

It is not for within the Americas only. Besides most of those are metric. US producers sell USC labelled goods to anyone buying their product. Europeans reject cluttered labels with useless metric quantity conversions from USC. The solution to have one manufacturing batch in metric quantities for export and another in USC for internal consumption is, apart from being stupid, too expensive for US manufacturers. That is why negations about changing your labelling law to allow metric only in the US is still going on. Quite a number of US States have enacted legislation to that effect, but a minority is holding out for reasons only known to themselves.

Damian in London E16
>>>>>Surely the solution is simple.....the EU stops importing goods from the insular Americans. End of. <<<<<

Agreed, but how decent would it be if the only nation using medieval mesurement would behave like a good world citicen and make that long overdue step into the 21th century.


>>>>>My mother has a friend who has a sister living in California USA and occasionally she sends stuff over from there and the goods have imperial labels..... with the metric equivalents in brackets! She also sends recipes which Dolly hasn't a hope in hell of understanding. I don't think it's any use the EU expecting the Americans to comply with any stipulation from outside their own borders whatever the issue......the British have traditionally been conservative in the past, but never on a par with the current American version.

You're right about the multi lingual situation in the EU whatever it is you buy. Take any electrical/electronic device for example........the instruction leaflets are pages long with the full directions and information given in each individual Language. It takes a wee while to look for the section headed "GB"...with everything written in English. :-) <<<<<

You will have to live with languages because those do not become obsolete like measurements.

They do become obsolete just not as quickly.

You can't have been using the imperial system for hundreds of years because it didn't exist before 1824.

How is any label "cluttered" with any kids of measurements? They're just little numbers at the bottom edge -- no real clutter there! I think you have a wee bit more against the US than just how we weigh our veggies....

Yes, we detest the way you weigh your fruit too.

Oh, come on guys. We much prefer the Standard system over the "metric" system. Why do we have to switch? We don't know much about the rest of the world and frankly couldn't care less about it. That's why we choose to live in America. We prefer to use the American system--it's much more patriotic. Why would we ever want to use the French system? We don't even like France for Pete's sake. And the Standard, patriotic American Imperial Customary system is much easier to use. The rest of the world should have to switch to *our* system--not vice versa. We're the only superpower in the world for goodness sakes. If it were up to me, I would have the treasonous metric system banned in a Constitutional Amendment. At least it's easy to visualize an inch--it's about the same size as ones thumb, for example. What can you do with a centimeter? It's too small for anything useful, and no-one uses decimeters or whatever the heck they're called. Also, why use liters when you could use gallons? Who would want to buy a liter of milk, when he could buy a gallon?

Be Patriotic! Support the USA! Boycott the "metric system".

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Q. What ever happened to agent M?

Agent Q is entitled to his/her views.

Agent Q is entitled to be patriotic.

Agent Q has clearly set out his/her particular national mindset and agenda.

Agent Q on the face of it seems representative of the image many of us lesser mortals in "the rest of the world" hold of Americans generally.

Agent Q may or may now be aware that we "lesser mortals in the rest of the world" do actually see (and hear) some Americans who do share his/her attitude when they are over here.

Agent Q may or may not be aware that many "lesser mortals in the rest of the world" know it's unfair and ridiculous to categorise all Americans the same way.

Agent Q may or may not realise that his/her comments do his/her country no favours.

Agent Q may or may not be a trollish piss taker.

Agent Q may well be a tiny wee troll if his/her thumb is a mere 2.54cm (sorry..I mean one inch) in size. Sorry, Agent Q.....I inadvertently metricated you. :-)

Damian, if this is true:

<<Agent Q may or may not be aware that many "lesser mortals in the rest of the world" know it's unfair and ridiculous to categorise all Americans the same way. >>

Then why do you:
<<Agent Q on the face of it seems representative of the image many of us lesser mortals in "the rest of the world" hold of Americans generally.>>

In other words, if many of you know it is unfair and ridiculous, then why do many of you still hold that opinion of Americans?