Tongue in cheek

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Posted by KWIL on 27/01/2010 16:55:41:
We really must improve the accuracy here, surely it is 39.370118″ = 1 Meter!! At least they kept BSP even if it is expressed in some ridiculous measurements.

 

Hmmm… according to the calculator in my PC:

 

1/25.4 = 0.03937007874015748031496062992126 (also confirmed up to 9 decimal places by a sharp EL-9300)

Which, if multiplied by 1000 gives 39.37007874015748031496062992126 thou/mm. 

How accurate would you like it to be? I merely truncated the correct answer…

(surely KWIL was joking though – wasn’t he?)

Edited By Steve Garnett on 27/01/2010 20:21:30

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Of course, to be absolutely fair, I didn’t truncate it according to the normal rules – which would make it 0.0393701. But that’s still more accurate than 39.370118″ for a metre, because truncating at that point would give 39.370079″, according to the calc.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Sorry Wheeltapper, but 10 inches to the foot would not be ‘Metric’, it would be ‘decimal’.  in the same vane the 2 shilling peice, or the Florin, was introduced in 1842 in anticipation of the decimalisation of the British currency. 

 

Pity it took another 130 years to finalise,  I suppose that’s just the British attitude tho’.  Don’t do now what you can put off ’til tomorrow!

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Dear Steve Garnett,

 

“Even metre itself has two, so as ever with the French language, you get a load more verbal garbage than is strictly necessary. “

 

If you know how to pronounce metre en Francais, It actually has one syllable, It’s just that the English language has been bastardised by adopting words from so many other sources (mostly French) that it is just as impossible to find consistent pronunciation as it is to find any consensus on so called ‘imperial’ measures (they are mostly French anyway, which they dumped as being so illogical).

 

Now ther’s a can of worms to open.

Edited By Terryd on 27/01/2010 22:06:57

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Dear Kwil, and Steve G

 

And of course the BA thread is  metric thread to imperial measures.

 

And you think it is the French who obfuscate?  after all we only have two ‘ounces’ and several ‘miles’ etc etc etc ad infinitum, but of course that’s ok because they’re ‘imperial’.

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Posted by Terryd on 27/01/2010 22:06:22:

If you know how to pronounce metre en Francais, It actually has one syllable, It’s just that the English language has been bastardised by adopting words from so many other sources (mostly French) that it is just as impossible to find consistent pronunciation as it is to find any consensus on so called ‘imperial’ measures (they are mostly French anyway, which they dumped as being so illogical).

 

But hey, TerryD, they did the pronunciation bit on purpose too. They only ever use words that they think foreigners will have difficulty with, just so they can smirk at the weird pronunciations!

 

I agree that we adopted a lot of words from all over the place, but that adoption was legal. If the words are bastardised, it’s because their parent language wasn’t properly married to itself… and anyway, the origin of Metre is greek, with its modern usage more due to the Italians than the French.  As for the measured lengths themselves (imperial and otherwise) and where they came from, it seems pretty clear that the answer is ‘all over the place’ and they’ve all been mucked about with along the way. And the French just capitalised on this chaos – as per usual…

[Bob YouldonParticipant @bobyouldon45599]

A metre, its not complicated; an old Sussex farm hand once summed it up, “simple boy, its a yard plus the thickness of a brick and a tile” So there you are, the definative answer from deepest Sussex!

 

Regards,

 

Bob Youldon

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Standard lengths and weights, feet, pounds metres, whatever, were introduced over centuries, every time the peasents threatened to revolt because they were fed up getting ripped off. Nothing changed there then. Doesn’t matter what you measure in, so long as everybody uses the same.

[BamberParticipant @bamber]

In my opinion the French only messed up the metre by a smidgeon, it should have been slightly smaller so that 1″ is 25.6mm then 1.64″ would be precisely 0.4mm

 

This would mean that all fraction inc measurements would convert cleanly to metric.

 

Dave

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Does not matter what you measure in, so long as you say what the units they are. If you do not like metric or imperial, invent your own!

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

I love French – it has excellent words in it – like Crecy, Agincourt, and a few sort of hung on like the Blenheim, Ramilies, Malplaquet, Oudenarde, Nile, Trafalgar, Talavera, Orthes Salamanca……Waterloo.

 

They just keep rolling off the tongue – can’t think why when one is talking of a friends.

 

Why we even have a cat called Salamanca in honour of the French.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Did I hear you mention ‘Hastings’ Meyrick? Oh no. you didn’t. 

 

Perhaps because the Norman William beat the Breton/Dane Harold and gave us French monarchs,  together with most of our language and measurement systems ( yes, the so called imperial system is in fact French).

 

Agincourt and Crecy were battles between French monarchs (one of whom happened to have England as a dukedom) for supremacy in France.

 

Of course we must be proud of our one English Monarch – Edward Ironsides (April to November 1016 – over 6 months) The Plantagenets were French Nobles, The Tudors were French/Welsh, The Stuarts were Scots and apart from a Dutch invasion since then we’ve had German Monarchs.  Oh and of course Churchill was half American.

 

To get back to Measurement systems – perhaps it is the inch that is too large?  Of course that couldn’t possibly be. in our little inward looking island, could it?

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Dear Steve,

 

the main units of weight we use are French (the ounce Avoirdupois and the ounce Troy – after the city of Goldsmiths Troyes in France) – forget the grain, pennyweight and barleycorn for now.  The pound is a French term (the original pound sterling was actually equivalent to a pound (troyes) of Silver (they still use the term ‘pound’), Of course the Mile (whichever one of 20 ‘standard’ miles you choose) is of Latin origin (due to invasions to the UK) etc etc etc ad infinitum.  All the French did was to standardise and simplify – no amount of Union Flag waving can alter that.

 

One unit of length, one of weight and one of volume.  And I wonder why it is the system for scientists worldwide,  and of course it is the reason that the UK government decided to adopt the Metric system in 1872 – no that’s not a typo – unfortunately wars and changes of governments got in the way.

 

It reminds me of the argument used by a little England Tory mp when debating the adoption in the 1960s of the metric system that the British Housewife wouldn’t be able to carry kilos of vegetables as the kilo was much heavier than the pound.

[chris stephensParticipant @chrisstephens63393]

Hi Terryd,

Methinks you have it a bit wrong. Normandy was not part of France at the time. This is why they had to invade, if you remember your history lessons. 

If you have ever wondered why we always refer to the 1066 affair as the ‘Norman’ invasion not the ‘French’ invasion, it is because the French had nothing to do with it.

William was only a DUKE of Normandy, for at the time it was a Duchy, but wanted to be KING of England. A King outranks a Duke in any game of “Top Trumps”.

chriStephens

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Hmm… “pound” isn’t French at all. In the UK its use is from the old english ‘pund’, and that came from the German punda and its origins are, of course, Latin. So if the French use it, it’s probably because they hijacked it from the same sources.

 

And as for a bit of Union Flag waving – well actually that’s not difficult at all, when you consider that the true founding father of Metrication in all but name was John Wilkins – just read  An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language if you want to see why. And yes, this essay pre-dates Mouton’s efforts by two years. And anyway, if Mouton’s system had been adopted the metre would have been about 2 of the current ones, and they’re quite large enough already. I’m prepared to give Mouton the credit for using multipliers rather than different names for multiples of the same unit, but that’s about it.

 

A brief criticism of Wilkins’ ‘Essay’ may be found here.

 

Some of my antecedents are French, and my middle name is essentially a French placename as well – but I’m still not sticking up for them!

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

I agree that Hastings was slightly unfortunate, but then anyone can have a bad day, and it was a long time ago.

 

As for the rest – one may discuss detail, but at the end of the day, it was the French that referred to the enemy as the English.

 

So we won.

 

I suspect therefore that, as necessary we took the best bits of their measuring system and left the worst. 

 

Which is why we (as a regiment) only recently stopped eating off Joseph Bonapartes table – which we acquired when we swapped it with 14H. They got his silver piss pot. (Same principle). 

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 30/01/2010 08:52:25

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Is there anything good that has come out of France? Maybe Michelin tyres but thay are not so good as they used to be.

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

Oh yes.

 

Catherine Deneuve, Isobel Adjani, for 2  stars in public

 

and Segolene de Mandat-Grancey . Stunning. Carelessly manic in a Mini Cooper – but stunning. And generous.

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 30/01/2010 11:15:01

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Posted by KWIL on 30/01/2010 10:20:07:
Is there anything good that has come out of France? Maybe Michelin tyres but thay are not so good as they used to be.

 Yes, plenty of things – but not so many mechanical ones that I recall. They’ve produced a few good engineers though, sometimes with more artistic flair than most. Check out Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, for instance.

Edited By Steve Garnett on 30/01/2010 16:23:00

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

How about Montgolfier, hot air ballon, and the hydralic ram for raising water.Bourdon, pressure gauge, barometer.Ian S C

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

two good things, B Bardot, and the brill. 2CV , model engineering at its best.

[chris stephensParticipant @chrisstephens63393]

Let us not forget Champagne, no sorry silly me, that was an English invention!

Edited By chris stephens on 31/01/2010 13:45:26

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Posted by chris stephens on 31/01/2010 13:44:24:
Let us not forget Champagne, no sorry silly me, that was an English invention!

 So, to all intents and purposes, was the hydraulic ram. It was certainly improved upon by Montgolfier, but he didn’t really invent it.

[DodParticipant @dod]

Seems to have gone quiet on this thread so anybody got the real answer to the measurement unit the Truss.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by KWIL on 30/01/2010 10:20:07:
Is there anything good that has come out of France?

.

How many soldiers does it take to defend Paris.?

Answer is :- Nobody knows because it's never been done.!

Nick

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