Another curious American unit of measurement

[Rocker]

Many Aussie woodworkers have been nonplussed by unfamiliar American units of measurement, such as the board-foot and the quarter, as in, say, "35 b.f.", or "8/4" (said as "eight quarters" - American woodworkers were never taught, it seems, that you should divide the numerator by the denominator, if the former is larger). A less familiar unit, used mainly in Massachussets, is the Smoot. To prevent any further disasters like the self-destruction of a spacecraft, which occurred due to American confusion over the metric system, I append an explanation of these curious units.

Board-foot = 144 cubic inches = 0.00236 cubic metres
Quarter = 1/4 inches = 0.00635 metres
Smoot = 1.7018 metres

The Smoot is defined as the body-length of a football-playing nerd. The original Smoot was a student from MIT, whose body was used to mark out in paint on the roadway of Harvard bridge a series of Smoots. The Smoot is now, by a typical instance of American cultural imperialism, one of the units you can choose to measure distances in Google Earth.

Rocker

[echnidna]

Has anyone ever measured the length of a dropbear.
Could be a perfect oz measure of length

[Sturdee]

Thanks Rocker.

I've heard a lot of stupid things before but that really beats it all.

Peter.

[Ratbag Oz]

It would seem that some of them are still inventing new measurements! I discovered this after downloading some free recipes from the internet. When I went to baking, I noticed that the measurements were unusual, and I didn't recognise them. After searching all my recipe books for conversions, I went back to the site. Turns out that they sell measuring devices, in new measurements, so the only way to make all the "Free recipes" Is to buy a full new set of measuring gear, that will only be useful for their recipes anyway. Nice trick eh?

Everything went in the bin, so I can't give you any more detailed info LOL

[craigb]

Has anyone ever measured the length of a dropbear.
Could be a perfect oz measure of length

Nah, the oz measure of length is the beesdick

[Termite]

Nah, the oz measure of length is the beesdick

The Ubeaut Bible has the full breakdown of Australian Standard Units of Measurement, beesdick, gnatsnut poofteenth etc etc.

[silentC]

I came across the Smoot in an article in the SMH last month so I looke dit up in Wikipedia and found it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...of_measurement

I took the liberty of adding the poofteenth and the beesdick to the article but some foreigner has had the audacity to challenge the validity of these well known units of mensuration and has removed them. The nerve!

[AlexS]

Another well-known Australian unit of measurement, of both length and mass, is the long weight. These are kept in most Bunnings, just at the cash register. Send the apprentice for one.

[bitingmidge]

I took the liberty of adding the poofteenth and the beesdick to the article but some foreigner has had the audacity to challenge the validity of these well known units of mensuration and has removed them. The nerve!

Apart from the outrage in having legitimate units of measurements removed so audaciously, I think it's a shame that you stopped at small measurements.

I really think that Google Earth should give some credence to the Stubby, the Six Pack, and the Slab/Carton as methods of measurement of distances between towns.

On the other hand, (and this is a little removed from woodwork) my favourite unit of speed is also fairly well removed from the metric system: Why don't we bring back "Furlong per Fortnight" as the national method of mesuring speed??

P

[Iain]

But what is a Stubby, 375-345 or 330ml, I have even seen some 310ml.
A bottle used to be 750 even for spirits then they shrunk them to 700ml, noticed the price didn't shrink accordingly.
For all the coke sniffers out there, snorting is a term originated by the Royal Navy for replenishing air in a submarine via a snorkel whilst still submerged.
I've been dying to offload that one.

[AlexS]

Why don't we bring back "Furlong per Fortnight" as the national method of mesuring speed??

P

This unit is related to a unit used by hydrographers to measure the volumetric rate of liquid flow - firkins a fortnight.

[E. maculata]

If you ever needed proof of how conservative the yanks are as a whole read this
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/dates.htm
in the time they've taken to not yet fully implement the system that has been approved by congress we've amongst many more things
been discovered
colonised
industrialised
unionised
metricized(within a decade I may add, not over 2 centuries)
deunionised
& developed a whole new culture

Oh yeah nothing like accepting change is there, makes the "staid" europeans seem like speed demons in matters of state change don't they?

[keith53]

Has anyone ever measured the length of a dropbear.
Could be a perfect oz measure of length

Picnic Bears are supposed to be pretty accurate as well..

[Cliff Rogers]

...Why don't we bring back "Furlong per Fortnight" as the national method of mesuring speed??...

That's called 'clocking it with a calender'...

A similar measure of slowness (not speed) it the 'month of Sundays'

[antisense]

Now these yanks are just plain wierd...

Something so wrong about stuffing a bird with a bird in a bird...

you'll see what I mean..

Damn TURDuckens...

antisense ^_^