2015-10

and The Short of It!
although Edward II decreed it
to be the length of three barley
corns. A foot is based on the
human foot. A yard was a single
stride, although Henry I decreed a
yard to be the distance between
the tip of his nose and the end
of his thumb with his arm
outstretched. A furlong is the
length of a medieval fi eld.
A chain is the length of a
cricket pitch, which, by the
way, is four rods! A mile is
derived from the Latin ‘mille’,
a thousand Roman paces or
double strides from left foot to
left foot.
A horse is still measured in hands, a
hand being four inches in length or,
as Henry VIII would have it in 1541,
from the outside of your thumb to
the outside of your little fi nger. A
cupful was the amount your hands
could carry, a hundredweight being
the most a person could carry,
and a hand-sized stone was
deemed to weigh a pound!
No wonder we are loathe to
give it all up for a more modern
metric system introduced at the
time of the French Revolution
in a frenzy of destruction of
all things ancient. In 1795 the
French calculated (inaccurately)
the distance between the North
Pole and the Equator and divided it by
ten million to produce a metre. It related
to nothing on a human scale. Everything
was to be based on the unit of ten.
So I reckon we are just going to carry
on converting for the foreseeable future
as we cling onto our old ways.
Sorry children. After 40 years of
teaching metric measures, you still need
to know that a metre is a little more than
a yard, a kilometre is less than a mile,
a litre is just more than two pints and a
kilogram is a little more than two pounds
(weight that is, not money!)
Ann Lomax
St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats
Church Offi ce: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffi eld S8 0GA
Tel: (0114) 274 5086
Page 15
email: offi ce@stchads.org
website: www.stchads.org