A MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

Feet and inches are for Bigfoot and miles are for those who want to make the world think they have bigger ones.


The funniest in this thread is that some of you think they have actually found out the Queen's statement was a hoax (as if we weren't aware of it).

 

??? I like it to but ... how is it easier to halve or third? If you are talking larger units the foot and yard come out in an even number of inches if you halve or third them. A third of a meter takes more digits than you can print.

 

Hasn't this been around for a while? I think I first saw it a decade or more ago. Not that it isn't worth repeating every decade or so.

 

I'm off to dump some tea in the harbor. Actually, I don't have a harbor anywhere near so I'll dump it in my pond, and I don't have any tea so I'll dump in some oregano as a substitute. I'd march on Concord, but I'd likely run afoul of the gun laws in Massachusetts, which makes me wonder why they marched to save the guns in Concord in the first place? I'd shoot a jar of grape jelly instead, but all I have is strawberry which will have to do. I'm not even sure they make Concord grape jelly any more. No doubt jelly is now made from some inferior grape from Chile or some damned place. The whole country is going to hell... Stay off my lawn you limey bastids!

 

I like to measure everything with cubits and spans.

 

with mixed units and if I don't find the translations all that difficult one can either translate to a single unit ahead of the operation such as: 15ft7 and 3/8 inches I would think of as 187 and 3/8 inches half of which is 93 and 11/16 inches. Or half of 15ft 7&3/8 inches is 7ft 6inches plus 3 and 11/16 incheas or 7ft 9&11/16 inches. I'll agree that it's easier to take half of 3.4 but again if I'm measuring I tend to use single units unless for some reason I find mixed ones easier. Similarly 7/16 is 14/32 clearly larger than 9/32. There's also the option to go with decimal fractions of an inch or foot for that matter. One can do whichever is most convenient. When it comes to volume measures I'm in complete agreement. Never can remember the ratio of tea spoons to table spoons to cups. Weight as long as it's tons, lbs, or ounces (neglecting that there are at least two definitions of ounces) I'm ok and find it pretty easy; once you start talking some of the more esoteric ones though ....

It may depend on what your typical use of the various measurements are. I tend to use both but in different circumstances. Woodworking I tend to use English because that's both what I'm used to and what things are written up in. Converting back and forth between systems is a real pain IMO. Cooking I'd prefer to use metric but most of our measuring devices are English and so are most of the recipes I have and as I said conversions are a pain and the required precision is pretty minimal. At work on the other hand it's almost all metric.

 

she did parachute at the Olympics, no??

 

Did she?

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120729/jsp/frontpage/story_15785682.jsp#.VsNtq_nhC9I

 

One advantage of the imperial system was being taught the 12x tables. That knowledge can impress the youngsters who can only multiply by units of 10. And we had measurements such as pecks, gallons, leagues, furlongs and hands that sound more impressive than metres and millilitres etc.
UK has not fully adopted the metric system as fabric length is in metres yet the width is inches. Is it any wonder that I am still confused?

 

Since before the internet was the internet.

http://messybeast.com/dragonqueen/independence.htm

 

Brown chicken, brown cowww.
The Ron Jeremy of WW2F.

 

One of the best units has to be 'imperial dry buckets per fathom per fortnight'.....it describes the speed of descent of a solid through a distance in a time, otherwise a 'speed'.

 

Most of the English people I know still use stones, pounds and ounces; pints and gallons; inches, feet and yards. Also road distances are set in miles. These continental measurements have never really taken on here. Just like our new funny money, no not the Euro, that new pence thing which replaced good old pounds,shillings and pence; dreaming of the sixpence, threepenny bit, farthing, half crown, and florin. Good old days those.

Brian

 

Hear what you say but I'm not sure. More difficult to work out the price of 'two pounds three and a half ounces of stewing beef at six shillings and four pence per pound' than doing it in metric. Dad could do this in his head....or was he just guessing....I haven't the faintest idea.

I do remember doing some land measuring with my uncle and he was puzzled as to how I did the calculations quicker than him: I converted everything to metric, did the maths, and then converted the answer back again! Metres far simpler than Chains, Roods, Links and Perches and all that other stuff.

 

Don't leave out lines, leagues, cables and furlongs

 

I must admit to using 'like' more often that I should , dunno how that started.

My Father-in-law uses 'you know' far too much.
Mother-in-law picked him up on it & I then counted her using it 17 times in the next few minutes.

 

Wouldn't that be stones, pebbles, and grains?

 

We have a small measurement in Australia...'hair of a bee's dick...' I'm sure you've heard of it...