Submitted by VeryPoliteRaccoon t3_121mud8 in todayilearned
Low_Brass_Rumble t1_jdnayv3 wrote
I know this isn’t what the post is about, but that chart is absolutely idiotic. It’s like ten different measurement systems with totally different use cases, no connection to each other, and zero reason to ever convert between them, mashed together without rhyme or reason and arranged in a way that seems deliberately haphazard to make them look more confusing:
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Twips, points, picas, lines, and sticks are typesetting measurements, and never used outside of that context.
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Nails, spans, ells, skeins, and spindles are units of measure specifically for fabric, and never used outside of that context.
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Ropes, rods/poles, Gunter’s chains, and Ramsden chains were units for surveying, named after actual tools, and never used outside of that context. They have no real relation to each other aside from through feet, and generally weren’t ever converted from one to the other.
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Fathoms, shackles, cables, and nautical miles are all nautical units of measure, and never used outside of that context. Fathoms are also a unit of depth, and as such not generally used to measure distance.
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Hands, digits, palms, fingers, shaftments, paces, and grades/steps were mostly colloquial units of measure used before measuring implements were widely available.
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Furlongs are mostly anachronistic, and were only ever really used to measure horse races.
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Poppyseeds and barleycorns are units defined by a standard set in the 1300s and haven’t been used in any capacity for hundreds of years.
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A Roman mile is a literal ancient Roman unit, and has nothing to do with the rest of this chart.
Just because all these units were somewhere, at some point, used by some number of English-speakers for some purpose, doesn’t mean they’re all part of the same system of measurement.
Plexiii13 t1_jdoe9h8 wrote
I watched a whole video that heavily focused on how bad that chart was.
Low_Brass_Rumble t1_jdoeg98 wrote
Ooh, love me some Jan Misali! I’ve mostly watched his ConLang content before - def gonna give this a look
Plexiii13 t1_jdog2e5 wrote
Yeah I love his videos, glad my recommendation was well-targeted lol!
blackbelt352 t1_jdp9pix wrote
His carameldansen video is an absolute banger
[deleted] t1_jdocdxo wrote
[removed]
cool110110 t1_jdr7tfp wrote
> Ropes, rods/poles, Gunter’s chains, and Ramsden chains were units for surveying, named after actual tools, and never used outside of that context.
The Gunter’s chain is used in other contexts, the most important being in cricket.
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