English terms

General
1

I am in the U.S. and I have been reading lots of posts from the U.K.
There are some terms I would like to have explained.

One has to do with weight, the Stone. The other is money, the Quid.
I don’t have a clue as to what either one is.

Lowell

2

Quid is to pound (money) as buck is to dollar.

Stone is to pound (weight) as absurd is to archaic. I think one stone is something like 14 pounds (weight).

3

Re: English terms

----- Original Message -----
From: harper <harper.bxo2c@timelimit.unicyclist.com>
Newsgroups: rec.sport.unicycling

Thanks Greg. I sort of figured Quid had something to do with money.
The Stone threw me a curve.

Lowell

>
> Quid is to pound (money) as buck is to dollar.
>
> Stone is to pound (weight) as absurd is to archaic. I think one stone is
> something like 14 pounds (weight).
>
>
> –
> harper - Gearhead
>
> -Greg Harper
>
> Christmas doesn’t come sooner if you ask about it. -gauss
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4

Re: English terms

> Stone is to pound (weight) as absurd is to archaic.

Hmm… You guys still use miles, gallons, and other ancient
units, right? Advertise a pound of apples in the UK and risk
prosecution under some truly absurd legislation.

> I think one stone is something like 14 pounds (weight).

That’s right. Some aardvarks weigh in at over 17 stones but
have still not tacoed their Cokers :-).

Arnold the Aardvark

5

Re: Re: English terms

Yes, the units used in the US are all stupid except for the money where the quarter is the only remaining moronic coin. The units are not so idiotic as are the subdivisions. 16 ounces in a pound? Well, I suppose that using hexadecimal shows some foresight, but 12 inches in a foot?

6

Re: Re: Re: English terms

And how many feet in a yard? Depends on how many people are standing in it.

7

Off Topic Tangent…

While in High School I had the fortune of winning backstage passes at a Bush concert. I quickly learned that the whole backstage pass thing is nowhere near as cool in real life as “they” would have you believe.

Anyway, I was perplexed with the title of Bush’s debut album “Sixteen Stone”. From a British teacher, I learned what stone means in UK. Still, I didn’t know what “Sixteen Stone” meant (aside from the literal translation to 224 pounds.)

I figured my backstage passes would give me the perfect opportunity to find out from the horse’s mouth. So, I asked a very drunk Gavin Rossdale what it was that weighed Sixteen Stone.

…a quote “It’s a prostitute my friend once slept wiff (sic)”

Nice!

8

Re: Re: Re: English terms

12 divides neatly into halves, thirds, quarters or sixths.

16 divides neatly into halves, quarters, eighths.

10 divides into halves or fifths.

So working in twelfths isn’t irrational. It is useful for rule of thumb calcualtions and day to day use. Using ten only seems easier because we have a decimal counting system and (now) most other units are in multiples of 10. When there were 12 pence in a shilling, it was very handy to be able to buy by the foot or by the inch with no complex arithmetic!

What would have been better would have been using base 12 from day 1. A wise Creator would have foreseen that, which is one of the less important reasons why I am an atheist. :roll_eyes:

And miles, which the also Americans use: 1760 yards, right? Divides neatly into halves, quarters, eights and so on (880 yds, 440 yds, 220 yds, 110 yds) which fits in neatly with the old measurements of furlong and acre. There was a reason for it all.

Except: why on earth 14 pounds in a stone, but 16 ounces in a pound? 14, divisible by 2 and 7 - two prime numbers. That one, i’ll grant you, is irrational.:frowning:

9

Re: Re: Re: Re: English terms

Mike,

You would blame the Creator for standards of measurement other than 365 days per year?

Had to ask…

Bruce

10

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: English terms

My throwaway remark carried within it the unspoken assumption that we use base 10 because we have 10 fingers/thumbs. If we had 12, then very probably base 12 would have been selected as the ‘standard’ many years ago.

As for blaming someone whom I regard as non existent, that’s a trick question, right? I wanna lawyer an I want one now!:wink:

11

Re: English terms

Arnold the Aardvark <aardvark@removetubulidentata.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Stone is to pound (weight) as absurd is to archaic.

> Hmm… You guys still use miles, gallons, and other ancient
> units, right? Advertise a pound of apples in the UK and risk
> prosecution under some truly absurd legislation.

The thing that always amuses me is the US phrase
“A pint’s a pound the world around”
when every UK Imperial user knows that
“A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter”!

Both are correct in terms of the weight of course
(if not the geography) as the US and UK just use
different pints. I think the US use the old “Wine
Pint” while the UK use the “Ale Pint”.

Paul

Paul Selwood
paul@vimes.u-net.com http://www.vimes.u-net.com

12

Re: English terms

Further off topic but:

Isn’t a year on earth approximately 365.24219878 days? That’s why every 4
years we have a leap year and add a day. Even this isn’t sufficient to keep
things accurate so we periodically throw in an extra “leap second”.

-mg

“yoopers” <yoopers.byimc@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:yoopers.byimc@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> Mikefule wrote:
> > *
> > What would have been better would have been using base 12 from day 1.
> > A wise Creator would have foreseen that, which is one of the less
> > important reasons why I am an atheist. :roll_eyes:
> > *
>
>
> Mike,
>
> You would blame the Creator for standards of measurement other than 365
> days per year?
>
> Had to ask…
>
> Bruce
>
>
> –
> yoopers - Bruce & Mary Edwards
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> yoopers’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/31
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/20814
>

13

Re: Re: English terms

When was that leap second? I knew I was missing something!

14

i was listening to the coordinated universal time on short wave a couple years ago when they inserted an extra second into the UTC timeline.

it was one of the most moveing things i ever heard.i tune in and listen to UTC quite often (its on right now).i wish i could be a “live” reader of time on there someday.what a breeze 8 hours of work would be,just sitting in a chair reading the minutes as they past into history.

15

Re: English terms

The first leap second was introduced on June 30, 1972. Information on the
most recent leap second can be found here
(ftp://tycho.usno.navy.mil/pub/series/ser14.txt). The historical list of
leap seconds (ftp://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/tai-utc.dat) lists all of them.

-mg

“yoopers” <yoopers.byt1b@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:yoopers.byt1b@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> Michael Grant wrote:
> > *Even this isn’t sufficient to keep
> > things accurate so we periodically throw in an extra “leap second”.
> >
> > -mg
> > *
>
>
> When was that leap second? I knew I was missing something!
>
>
> –
> yoopers - Bruce & Mary Edwards
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> yoopers’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/31
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/20814
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16

This is great! I can use this as an excuse for being late to the next 10K Unlimited at NAUCC! I knew I’d find a way to get out of it.

17

Re: English terms

Paul Selwood wrote:
> The thing that always amuses me is the US phrase
> “A pint’s a pound the world around”
> when every UK Imperial user knows that
> “A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter”!

I think the pubcos would go for the American idea. So would Bush’s lapdog
Blair, given the government’s record on full pint legislation.

I wish I knew where I could get a pint for a pound. A few years ago when I
was at university I knew a pub that served a beautiful pint of real ale for
99p. But it changed hands and turned into a gay bar when I wasn’t looking,
so I haven’t been in there since.

–
Danny Colyer (remove safety to reply) ( http://www.juggler.net/danny )
Recumbent cycle page: http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/recumbents/
“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” - Thomas Paine

18

Re: English terms

Correct: 14 pounds is a stone perfectly reasonable, until you discover
that 8 stones equals one hundredweight: do the maths and the
hundredweight gives 112 pounds!!!
And if you think rods poles and perches are to do with fishing…think
again.

I thinks its bloody wonderful. Bring back the groat. I’ve had enough of
this decmalisation.

Naomi

“harper” <harper.bxo2c@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message
news:harper.bxo2c@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> Quid is to pound (money) as buck is to dollar.
>
> Stone is to pound (weight) as absurd is to archaic. I think one stone is
> something like 14 pounds (weight).
>
>
> –
> harper - Gearhead
>
> -Greg Harper
>
> Christmas doesn’t come sooner if you ask about it. -gauss
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> harper’s Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/426
> View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/20814
>