Mark Atwood (fallenpegasus) wrote,
Mark Atwood
fallenpegasus

In defense of traditional units

A mile is a thousand strides of a marching soldier. A pound is a rock that fits in your hand. A cup is a good drink of water. A yard is one arm pull of fabric or thread. A bushel is one easily carried bundle of harvested food. An acre is the amount of land that one man can plow in one day. An hour is the length of time that can be easily snap measured by glancing at the angle of the sun. The traditional dry goods and wet goods volumes and weights are doubles and halves of each other, rooted in the smallest common food grain and the smallest possible pour of water. Inches, spans, cubits, feet, yards, are all derived from the human body, and let one use your own body to measure things out. Degrees F are a 100 unit scale from the lowest temperature to the highest temperature that will ever regularly happen were people could live before the invention of modern HVAC.

They all make sense, when you know their history, and are using them for what they are used for.

The metric SI units are useful doing... science. But not so much for living day to day.

This entry was originally posted at http://fallenpegasus.dreamwidth.org/852972.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Subscribe

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Comments allowed for friends only

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 0 comments