Re: CHAT: measures (was: browsers)

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 13:29:40 -0500
John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:

> Imperial pints are ~ 568 ml, which I'm sure was the Australian value also.
> Hence the British beer-drinker's lament:  a litre is too much, half a
> litre is too little, but a pint, ah, a pint is just right!  Won't work
> in the U.S., of course, since our pint is only ~ 473 ml.
Something I learned the hard way, in NY & NJ last week. But it leads me to
wonder: some places offered, say, Guinness or Bass, in 20 oz glasses since
they're Irish/British drinks. But did I get 20 U.S. oz or 20 Imperial oz?

And a pint (Imperial) *is* just right :)



> However, gold and
> silver are measured in troy pounds, which have only 12 troy oz. each.
> (1 troy oz. = ~ 31.1 g, 1 troy lb. = ~ 373 g.)  Hence the old question,
> "Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?" to which
> the answer is "A pound of feathers", because it is an ordinary (aka
> "avoirdupois") pound.
Sadly, as a kid, I translated "avoirdupois" as "to have peas" instead of
"to have weight" . I imagined it had something to do with buying groceries :)


> A bushel, however, is 8 dry gallons.
> (The bushels in which grain is sold, however, are weight-based, and
> their size depends on what the grain is.)
Aagh! Dry gallons!

> Mincemeat is mincemeat everywhere.  Mince is the chopped dried fruit
> used to make mince pies, which presumably once contained mincemeat.
> Ray Brown (IIRC) told me that mince pies were so-called in the U.K. as well,
> and likewise did not contain meat.
Sure, but except in a festive context, "mince" is more common than
"mincemeat" when "mincemeat" is intended.

s.

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