Measurements /Liz / Nethilia

[Rita Winston]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Haggridd" <jkusalavagemd at y...> wrote:

> It is understandable that we tend to think in imperial units of 
> measurement, because they are natural.  An inch is the first joint
> of the thumb; a foot is, well, a FOOT; a yard is the length of a
> pace; a mile is 1000 paces. 

Our mile is 5280 feet even tho' it was copied from the Roman mile 
of 5000 feet. If it is really a natural measure, that implies that 
Roman legionnaires had a shorter pace than medieval folk. Btw, 
a friend of mine with the surname Miles, which is Latin for soldier 
(and source of English word 'military'), liked to tell me that the 
legionnaires were called 'miles' (two syllables) because of the 
'miles' (one syllable) they marched. My dictionary did not agree.

Anyway, altho' the imperial units began as natural, they have nothing 
to do with MY body: my foot is (eyeball estimate) 8.75 inches long 
like my wand, NOT twelve inches long -- even for men, who all have 
big feet except one boyfriend I had in high school with the same shoe 
size as me, a twelve inch long foot is big and ugly.

lizcford wrote:
> seriously, you can visualise a mile with ease...you know 
> exactly how long it would take to walk, drive cycle one mile.
> but who can do the same with Kilomatres? 

I suppose people who grew up using kilometers (klicks) or who worked 
with them EXTENSIVELY in surverying or something can visulise them as 
well as you can visualize a mile. I said 'you' rather than 'we' 
because I don't visuaal a mile very well: I usually have to 
deliberately summon up the memory of some real distance that is one 
mile long, like the distance from Lincoln Blvd to the Promenade.

I generally think of metric with rounded-off conversion factors, like 
2.2 lb for kg. Unfortunately, I haven't memorized any for grams yet. 
Klick is .62 mile, which for short distances rounds off well enough 
to 2/3 of a mile, and mi is 1.6-something km, which for short 
distances is close enough to one and a half. 

Nethilia de Lobo:

I keep wondering whether your name is a clue that you are a werewolf 
like Mr. Lupin.