-=> Jay Emrie said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "PHILIPS TUBES (VALVES)!" on 12-24-02  22:45.....

 JE> I never could understand why Great Britain stayed on the
 JE> pound/shilling/pence bit for so terribly long.

Same reason the US has stayed on miles/yards/feet/inches... pure
cussedness and resistance to change 

Meanwhile, I offer this for your perusal......

  THE IMPERIAL RULER   or   "Every Inch A King, Every Foot A Ruler"
  =================================================================
Amongst the multitude of precision tool users, there are obviously many
who - coming from parts of the world where people toil at the
complexities of the Metric system - are not aware of the simplicity, the
stark beauty, nor the crystal clear efficiency of the Imperial Measuring
Method.

We propose spreading the message of British Measurement by bringing to
you the derivation of some of the more commonly used units of length.

The base measurement is the yard. this unit was very sensibly defined as
the distance between the fingertips and nose of a King looking straight
ahead with his arms outstretched. It is believed that a platinum-iridium
replica of the original King is now used, as after a long and useful
life of holding his arms outstretched and looking straight ahead, the
original King suffered some distortion in the embalming process.

Now obviously the yard is too big to use in measuring all things. For
example, the maximum permissible extension of a recalcitrant serf on the
rack was only a small part of a yard if he was to retain his service and
work ability. So the unit was divided into 36 sub-units called inches.
Thirty six was chosen as the King was just 36 days from being 44 years
old at the time. Had he acted a day earlier, the intrinsic tidiness of
the whole system would have been jeopardized.

Unfortunately, the inch proved impracticable for some purposes. The
Royal Throne Maker would have been extended by several yards had he
worked only to this tolerance in his craft. So the inch was further
subdivided into 64 parts. Sixty-four was chosen because this was, in
fact, one year before the age at which the King was to be superannuated,
and because he liked this number better than 73 anyway.

Historians differ on this point, and some say 64 was chosen because this
made 1/64 of an inch around one 2304th of the distance between the
King's nose and his fingertips - 2304 being the number of weekly
tourneys held under the King's Standard (he had celebrated his 44th
birthday only 57 days previously).

However, in applications like filing a small amount of gold from the
edge of a sovereign before making payment on the National Debt, 1/2304
of a yard proved to be too gross a unit, and so the inch was further
subdivided into one thousand parts. This introduction of one thousand
into the system detracts from the romance of the British measurement,
besides introducing a measurement which is smaller by a factor of 15 5/8
than the next greater one, but fortunately it is now used only by
artisans in the Metal trade. Gentlemen, Men of Commerce and Workers in
Wood sensibly shun this unit with its decimal overtones, and properly
talk in sixty-fourths.

There still existed a need for a unit between the inch and the yard for
measuring such things as the drop of a well-constructed gallows, and so
the foot was devised. This unit was called a foot to confuse industrial
spies from European gallows manufacturing concerns, who of course though
that it was the length of the King's foot - which was actually only ten
and 39/64 inches. As a result, European gallows made to those pirated
specifications never really worked well, and many criminals escaped
because they only dropped 679 / 768 ths of the proper distance.

Now there were many larger measurements to be made, even in a Small
Kingdom. The proper width of a moat, for example, was much more than a
yard and so the rod was created. This is 5 1/2 yards because that was
exactly the King's size in crowns. Fortunately, the King did not take a
5 3/4 in crowns because then the rod would not have equalled 198 inches,
not 16 1/2 feet, nor for that matter 12,672 sixty-fourths.

Many people think that the most important unit of length in the whole
British system, the chain, was made exactly one cricket pitch long
because the King was a promising off-spin bowler. They are wrong -  this
is purely coincidental. Twenty two yards was chosen as the length of the
chain because that was the maximum range at which the King had ever
felled a vassal with a pewter between August and December. And so once
again we see Providence and Britannia in collusion. A larger vassal, a
heavier pewter, and a chain may not have equalled 352 nails, nor 792
inches, nor even 50,688 sixty-fourths.

There were still other length measurements to be made: the distance
covered in one day by a deserting serf pursued by dogs; the ground put
between the King's army in retreat and the enemy between Matins and
Vespers; the perimeter of the estates seized by the King from Barons not
contributing sufficiently to the King's comfort. All these things needed
a much larger unit - consequently the mile.

The King, being a quick-witted man despite his small size in crowns,
decreed that the mile should be three and 9/16  times the range of the
second most powerful crossbow in the castle when fired into a Force 3
head wind. Fortuitously, this distance was found to be 4,055,040
sixty-fourths, or 63,360 inches, or 28,160 nails, or 15,840 hands, or
8,000 links or 5280 feet, or 1760 yards, or 320 rods, or 80 chains, or
if you prefer even 8 furlongs - which of course all turn out to be 1408
ells (English ells of course; the Flemish had 1760 ells to a mile and
hence undershot, while the French had 1173.33333 of their ells to a
mile, and after many years of overshooting, invented the Metric system
to maintain the status quo vis-…-vis perfidious Albion).

Table of everyday equivalents of length measurements:
1 mile     = 1408 ells                  1 chain    = 352 nails
1 furlong  = 1980 hands                 1 rope     = 6-2/3 yards
1 skein    = 545-5/11 links             1 rod      = 16-1/2 feet
1 league   = 2640 fathoms               1 cable    = 8640 inches
=========================================================================

From Greg Mayman, in beautiful Adelaide, South Australia

... I support the Metric System every inch of the way!
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30

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