Units of Measurement

[oldbmw]

Why is it if you ask someone who lives near London how far away somewhere is, they invariably reply using time as a unit of measurement. ie how far from St albans to Heathrow? answer 20-30 minutes. This is wildly inaccurate by donkey

Recently ( like today) some one asked about seat height and a response was to get abike between 400-800cc. Engine size bears little relationship to seat height. I have a friend with a 1400cc Honda, that has a really low seat height.
Lower even than my Enfield which in turn is lower than an 800cc bmw rt.

These generalisations tend to breed urban myths and get to be a very unreliable source of information.

I was once told by someone who should habe known better that a unit of centigrade is about twice that of farenheight. Nearly true at 100 C but obviously wrong at -40

[greenmanalishi]

Sadly this is down to age. I never understood metric when i was at school. It was all a bit like vitamins and grammes they were not invented by then. As for five a day it was what posh people did. Apparently 300 metres is 330 yards. My bike (Honda Transalp) only understands metric spanners not AF or even whitworth spanners.

I do feel like a dinosaur but I supect I am not the only one although we are a dying breed. Led Zep rock, who the hell is Amy winehouse?

[John Ferris]

In the topic "do you gain or lose weight on the road"
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...e-weight-51979

The poll is in stones, I had to look that up.
14 pounds to a stone.

I have to remember that, "I only put on 1 stone". That sounds much better.
It must be whitworth.

[Dodger]

The British are the only nation that truly understand units of measurement and have given the world many very useful and apt ways of mensuration.

Where else could one order a mutchkin or firlot of grain ,sit upon a long or short faggot ,or plough a virgate .
Did you know that a rod is the same as a pole ?
A hide would support a family .
Or a hobbit is worth four pecks .

But the most valuable unit is the furkin [not to be confused with a firkin ], it can be used as a way of measuring and also it can be descriptive .For instance;
Too furkin hot , too furkin cold .
Furkin long or furkin short .
About furkin time .
You are furkin late .
That bike has a furkin loud exhaust .
It's a furkin long way to London from here ,I'd start from somewhere else ,if I were you .
The furkin is an ancient and very useful unit of measurement ,I recommend that you use it at every furkin opportunity .

[backofbeyond]

Originally Posted by Dodger

But the most valuable unit is the furkin [not to be confused with a firkin ], it can be used as a way of measuring and also it can be descriptive .For instance;
Too furkin hot , too furkin cold .
Furkin long or furkin short .
About furkin time .
You are furkin late .
That bike has a furkin loud exhaust .
It's a furkin long way to London from here ,I'd start from somewhere else ,if I were you .
The furkin is an ancient and very useful unit of measurement ,I recommend that you use it at every furkin opportunity .

I thought we were getting a somewhat dusty post about rods and poles and perches (whatever they are) until I got to the bit above. It had me laughing out loud - no mean feat at 7.00am .

I would just mention though that the distance to London bit is only valid if you're starting from somewhere in Ireland

[oldbmw]

Thanks for the replies.

I never understood this fascination of Whitworth spanners. You are very unlikely to find a whitworth nut or bolt on an old British bike. Unless it screws directly into an aluminium casing it will inevitably be BSF, or possibly cycle thread.

Fortunately it is impossible to navigate in Metric, so you have teh ridiculous chaos of maps showing heights and depths in metres (which relate to nothing) and distances in nautical miles, time in non decimal as are latititude, longitude and the angle of sextant readings. It is little wonder they crashed a landing module on Mars due to part of the software operating in Imperial and part in metric. (hit the ground too fast as speed was measured in Meters per second and landing speed calibarated for Feet per second)

[mark manley]

Working in the engineering in the UK we quite often mix English and metric in the same sentence, for example giving the nominal size in metric and the tolerance in inches. I have used a similar mix quoting miles per litre, or was that kilometers per gallon, I forget. What do you expect in a country where they sell draught in pints, 20 fluid onces not American 16 fluid onces, and bottled in 500ml.

If you want another bastion of English measurement go to Burma where distance is still in miles and furlongs even on their band new road to their band new capital city, quaint.

[DAVSATO]

my varadero's fuel computer does miles/litre, so even the japs do it!

[palace15]

Coming from London, we all know what a 4x2 is, but a 47x100 does not have the same ring to it!!!

[Joe C90]

most cars/vans are 4x2, 100x47 is a centipede with 53 broken legs?