http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/demand-to-quantify-dram-as-a-measure-of-whisky.20708857
Push in Scotland to rename a 25 mL serving of Scotch a dram: 'Before the country went metric, most measures of whisky were one-fifth of a gill or one fluid ounce, although some pubs took great pride in serving the larger and older quarter-gill. Now the normal measure is 25ml, which is smaller than the 28.4ml that was the fifth of a gill. Festival manager Mary Hemsworth said: "The National Measurement Office appears set on the prescribed limit of 25ml and 35ml, so we feel that the only way forward is to press to have these measures officially named a dram – and a large dram – so long as they are used exclusively for the sale of Scotch whisky in Scotland."' This should be confusing. In both Customary and Imperial a dram (spelled 'drachm' in Imperial) is 1/8 of a fluid ounce. (In weight, it is 1/16 of an av. oz.) If they get somewhere around 3.6 mL instead of 25 mL, they won't be happy Scots. Perhaps it is a positive. When a word has enough contradictory meanings, then it has no meaning whatsoever.
