[HPforGrownups] Re: Wordplay/ What's fun about the HPs? -- "hogshead"

[ClareWashbrook at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 152726

>Geoff:

>For  comparison, my source was the following:

>'Hogshead > noun 1 a large  cask. 2 a measure of liquid volume equal >to 52.5 imperial gallons (63 US  gallons, 238.7 litres) for wine or >54 imperial gallons (64 US gallons,  245.5 litres) for beer.'

>(Reader's Digest Word Power  dictionary)



Clare now:
 
This is an excerpt from the statute itself (the Roman numerals mean 3 score  and 3 = 63):
 
"1423 Rolls  Parlt. IV. 256/1 Tonnes, Pipes, Tertians,  Hoggeshedes of wyn of Gascoign..shulden be of certein mesure..the Terciane IIIIXX  IIII  galons, the Hogges~hede IIIXX  III  galons."
 
Oxford English Dictionary:

"... Such a caskful of liquor; a liquid measure containing 63 old  
wine-gallons ..."

"In later use varying from 100 to 140 gallons; the hogshead ... in  1749 ... fixed at 100 gallons. "

Your Imperial equivalent is correct (53 Imperial gallons) but this  
measurement was never used and is not used now.  The hogshead was out of  use during Imperial measurements and we are now metric. 
 
For interests sake, the first person to use it as a metaphor  (which is the beginning of the linguistic line which culminates (for now) in  Rowling's use) was Boswell in 1769 - "a hogshead of sense"  


smiles,
Clare xx