h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just remember overhearing a heated discussion between two guys.
One of them was adamant: A lightyear measures distance!
The other was equally adamant: A lightyear measures time!
They may still be arguing for all I know

standard Yorkshire measure = "chuck n'hand full in, it'll be rait"
always works a treat

I've got some more recipes I'm thinking of submitting,
should I be worried that I've started some sort of international indecent?

Lanza, what a great idea! If you could sort this mess out for our readers, boy, would you be doing us all a favour!

Who knew what we'd find when we tried to share recipes around the world?

You know, there's an old measurement that says to use the amount of a spice that fits on the point of knife...

I think that's where our Swedish "kryddmått" comes from...

In Denmark we use exactly that, Dmitri: A 'knivspids'

I'm pretty sure (due to just having been corrected on the matter, not long ago...) that 'Imperial' measurment actually date back to the _Roman_ Empire. A pound, for example, is originally a 'libra' (same origin as the 'lira', like the money, by the way, which explains why the Pound Sterling is also called 'Lira' in some places!), hence the abbreviation to lb. Been meaning to check up on all that, actually.

Ah, there we go - the Concise Oxford definition of 'pound' (both the weight and the monetary units) gives the following under origin:

>>OE pund, of Gmc origin, from L. "(libra) pondo", denoting a Roman ‘pound weight’ of 12 ounces. <<

I have also just found out that 'ounce' and 'inch' come from the same place - the word 'uncia', denoting a 12th part. This is so cool!

Aha! Lanza, you've got the start of a collaborative entry here.

Makes a lot of sense, Lady Pennywhistle. Why would the Brits use imperial measurements when they no longer have an empire

Well, they (you?) have been moving to metric measurements, no?


Soon the US will be left all alone, with their ounces and gallons and yards and their oh-so-stupid Fahrenheits, and everywhere else will be using units that MAKE SENSE.

That's right. We insist on our constitutional right to be nutty.

I know a mile goes back to the Romans, it comes from 'mille passuum' which means 'a thousand paces'. Feet and inches go back to them, pounds and ounces ... hours go back to the Egyptians. Seconds seem to go back about a 1000 years. I wonder how far days go back?

There are, of course, Brits who are fighting a rearguard action against the introduction of the metric system. They see it as a more cunning attempt to take over Britain after Hitler failed to do so.

Assuming you mean day as in 'a unit consisting of 24 hours', rather than 'the time between when the sun rises/sets and the next time the sun rises/sets' (I added 'sets' because Jewish days begin on sundown), I seem to vaguely remember that it's a relatively modern concept.

I know weeks go back to the Babylonians, or possibly Assyrians, or some other early Mesopotamians. It's a way to divide the month (which is of course based on the cycle of the moon) into smaller periods, also basically moon based: you have the new moon and the dying moon, the full moon in between those two, and half-moons between them and the full moon.
And as far as I remember (although I'm not as certain on that bit), whichever ancient Mesopotamians these were also considered the days of the full/dead/new/half moon to be dangerous times, susceptible to bad luck, and thus avoided doing important work on them; this was called sappatu or sabbatu, and that eventually became the Sabbath, a holy day when you're not supposed to do any work.

This may sound like teasing, KB, but I am asking this seriously: do these people also advocate going back to the old monetary system? You know, twelve crowns in a shilling and twenty shillings on a pound but 21 in a guinea (or something like that, I forget)? I mean, it seems a very similar idea to the Imperial measurements.

I didn't know that about sabbaths.

They should. I believe they still owe us a lot of danegeld - with interest!

Milady, as Milla pointed out earlier we use kryddmåd/knivspids, teaspoon, tablespoon, cups and whatnot in our kitchens although we went metric hundreds of s ago

This may be simply because our recipes are so old. Of course we could 'translate' them all into grams and litres but it just doesn't seem necessary

oops !