Having 10 or 12 names for one thing (ton, hundredweight, quarter, stone, pound, ounce, grain, etc.) had the advantage in medieval times of making sure that no one unit name had too large a number next to it. This was important back when few had any education as large numbers were incomprehensible to them.
As mentioned before, in change bell ringing, the tradition was to indicate the mass of bells in hundredweights, quarters and pounds. Thus, the 1629 kg tenor bell at the Washington National Cathedral, 3588 lb, is traditionally expressed in the bell ringing world as 32 cwt 0 qtr 4 lb. Three nice small numbers for the innumerate masses. 3588 was a number far beyond their comprehension – it was like some ancient people whose concept of quantity was “one, two, three, many.” Tradition is a hard nut to crack. Carleton From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Martin Vlietstra Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 12:09 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51761] Re: crazy Olde English measurements Even if you don’t want to find the average weight of a collection of people, why deprive somebody else of the opportunity? One example that I can think of is the average weight of players in a rugby scrum. In Rugby Union, a scrum is set formation where eight players form each team push against each other when the ball is placed between them. It is useful to know the average weight of the players in the scrum. BTW, Rugby Union converted to metric units in the 1970’s – the 5 and 10 yards lines became 5 and 10 metre lines while the 25 yards line became the 22 metre line. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John M. Steele Sent: 08 July 2012 14:08 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51760] Re: crazy Olde English measurements I must admit I'm not sure why you would want the average either. However, I have been on planes small enough that the pilot stands in the doorway, sizes you up as you board, and tells you what seat you'd like to sit in. So there might be a legitimate need to sum them. Let's see, that's 40 st 33 lb, subtract 28 lb carry 2 st, let's try 42 st 5 lb. Now, depending on whether the plane is Boeing or Airbus, its load spec is in either pounds or kilograms, so we're still nowhere. Are there any British-manufactured airplanes, and is their load spec seriously in stones? It all sounds so stone-age. The American approach would be 1) Look up the stone in a reference (14 lb) 2) Convert each weight to all pounds 3) Sum As to the average, the American answer is 148.25 lb, the British answer 10 st 8 lb 4 oz, but anyone else in the world would say 67.2 kg. --- On Sun, 7/8/12, Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> wrote: From: Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:51759] Re: crazy Olde English measurements To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, July 8, 2012, 2:15 AM The point that I was making is that those who are nimble with figures prefer metric units – those who are not are probably not actually using those figures. Here in the United Kingdom we have a unit of measure the stone (described as “barbaric by a former Spanish colleague of mine). Although many people are very loud about using it, I believe that very few Brits could find the average of the following figures 8 st 4 lbs 10 st 12 lbs 9 st 11 lbs 13 st 6 lbs The usual answer is “Why would you want to find the average?” From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Hooper Sent: 08 July 2012 02:12 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51757] Re: crazy Olde English measurements On Jul 6 , at 11:22 AM, Martin Vlietstra wrote: Those of us who are nimble with numbers will quickly spot that 850 feet is less than ¼ mile – a mile is 5280 feet, so a ¼ mile is greater than 1000 feet, which in turn is greater than 850 feet. Not everyone is so nimble with units. I doubt whether many people could figure it out* (and even fewer would know the rule that shorter distances are alway shown in feet, never in miles, and longer distances are shown in miles, never in feet). However, you really missed my point so I must not have expressed myself well. Since I was writing to metric proponents, I just assumed that you would understand that I meant that it would be SO much easier in metric regardless of how "nimble with numbers" one is. Using SI, the one distance would be about 250 m and the other would be 0.4 km.* Now it is easy to see which is nearer, either by recognizing 250 m as being 0.25 km and comparing 0.4 km with 0.25 km, or by recognizing that 0.4 km is 400 m and comparing 250 m with 400 m. Regards, Bill * Of course, in a metric country they would probably use 400 m instead of 0.4 km in the first place, making it even easier.
