Re: CHAT: measures (was: browsers)

On Monday 10 February 2003 09:31 pm, you wrote:
> John Cowan wrote:
> > Tristan scripsit:
> (I also just want to make sure: a bushels still used? And things like
> horsepower? Links, rods and chains? I'm guessing quarters (2 stones)
> aren't. And that's all the odd ones I haven't heard on the back of
this
> exercise book.)
>
> >>(Apparently Americans don't use
> >>stones, either, and there goes my knowledge of weight measurements.)
> >
> > No, no stones in these parts.  People's weight is in pounds.
>

>
> Tristan.
>
>
When I was young my Mom would buy bushels of tomatos, and bushels or
pecks of apples or peaches farmers at canning (preserving) time. The
produce came in standard sized-and-shaped wood-slat baskets. The bushel
baskets had wire handles to grab them by. The peck baskets were the
diameter of a basketball hoop, (or, vice versa, historically, of
course).

When I buy produce for preserving, it comes in cardboard boxes and is
sold by weight.

I am living more than a thousand miles from where I spent my childhood:
they may still use bushels and pecks in Connecticut, although I suspect
the traditional baskets are prohibitively expensive for the farmers to
stock.

Horsepower is definitely used when discussing engine power. Less so of
electric moters, I think.

Never heard of quarters.

Links, rods and chains were mentioned in school because George
Washington was a surveyor when he was a young man. I don't think they
were ever much used outside surveying.
--
Elyse Grasso