Dear All, on 2005-01-20 23.39, Stephen Humphreys at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I do hope that will be a traditional pint! (and, no, NOT 16 oz!!) Some years ago, my wife was working in England, and when she came home she brought me a genuine English Pint glass. I am still unclear as to whether her choice of gift refers to my proclivity for measurement or for drinking beer - perhaps both. After reading your post about the size of a pint, I carefully filled my pint glass with 568 mL of water (actually I filled it with 568�g of water on my electronic scales). Filled is the operative word. My genuine pint glass from England was filled right to the brim - there was absolutely no room for foam. >From these observations it is clear to me that no-one ever gets a pint of beer in England when they ask for one - they get somewhat less - but how much less? To explore this further, I measured the diameter of the glass and made an (informed and experienced) estimate of the depth of froth that's usually put on the top of the beer. I then calculated the froth to be very close to 70�millilitres. So my calculation went 568�mL � 70�mL = 498�mL that I rounded to 500�mL or half a litre. Perhaps everyone who orders a 'pint' in England is quite unaware that they are really drinking 'half litres'. ** As I was going past this issue, I also dug out some notes about the pint's origin of by researching the word, pint, in several etymological (word origins) dictionary. It seems that 'pint' arrived in England in 1384, at least that is its first written reference. Apparently when it arrived it was spelled pinte because it had come from France, Prior to that it came either from the Vulgar Latin (as opposed to formal Latin) pincta or from the formal Latin picta. All of these refer to the idea of paint suggesting that the Latin word pincta might be simply referring to the painted marks on the side of a jug to show where the correct measure should be. Here is an etymology from http://www.etymonline.com/ pint � 1384, from O.Fr. pinte (13c.), from V.L. *pincta (cf. O.Prov., Sp., It. pinta), perhaps ult. from L. picta "painted," fem. pp. of pingere (see paint), on notion of a painted mark on a vessel indicating this measure. Used elliptically for "pint of ale" (or beer) from 1742. Pint-sized "small" (esp. in ref. to children) is recorded from 1938. While I was going past, I thought to check up on pound as well. Pound clearly came to England from Germany (punda, pund, pfunt, and Pfund) and from the Netherlands (pont, pund) and before that from the Latin word, pondo. Despite all this the abbreviation for pound was never the obvious p or po or pd. It has always used the abbreviation for the Latin word, libra, because medieval accountants liked to keep their secrets by writing their accounts in Latin. Here is the etymology from http://www.etymonline.com/ pound (n.1) - "measure of weight," O.E. pund, from W.Gmc. stem *punda- "pound" as a measure of weight (cf. Goth. pund, O.H.G. pfunt, Ger. Pfund, M.Du. pont, O.Fris., O.N. pund), early borrowing from L. pondo "pound," originally in libra pondo "a pound by weight," from pondo (adv.) "by weight," ablative of *pondus "weight." Meaning "unit of money" was in O.E., originally "pound of silver." At first "12 ounces;" meaning "16 ounces" was established before 1377. Pound cake (1747) so called because it has a pound, more or less, of each ingredient. Pound of flesh is from "Merchant of Venice" iv.1. The abbreviations lb., � are from libra, and reflect the medieval custom of keeping accounts in Latin. ** So let me get this right. Some folk in the UK want to avoid modern metric measures because they come from Europe and are therefore Eurocentric. Apparently they want to keep European measures so they don't have to use European measures! Cheers, Pat Naughtin ASM (NSAA), LCAMS (USMA)* PO Box 305, Belmont, Geelong, Australia Phone 61 3 5241 2008 Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by going to http://www.metricationmatters.com and clicking on 'Newsletter'. * Pat is the editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' chapter of the Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual � for writers, editors and printers', he is an Accredited Speaking Member (ASM) with the National Speakers Association of Australia, and a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association.
