Britain... just one more reason
Of boots and broken stuff...
"Three barleycorns comprising 1 inch was the legal definition of the inch in many mediæval laws, both of England and Wales, from the 10th century Laws of Hywel Dda to the 1324 definition of the inch enacted by Edward II. Used in current UK shoe measurement."*
Used in current UK shoe measurement? Did I just read that? Apparently the English are currently using a unit of measure from 1066 to size shoes.
Currently, as in Today. Right now. Exactly at this second, there's some UK bastard out there lining up his fucking barleycorns.
10 comments:
Well I take a UK 8.5 [an ideal size for caressing soccer balls] but in Canada I take a size 10 which would tend to indicate that the North American growing season produces larger barleycorns
*
from the people who brought you the infamous "yard of ale".
*
John Barleycorn must die.
Old Traffic song/album ?
I forget , long time ago.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*
sorry guys... just another robert day "flaming arsehole" alert.
*
And my Littlehampton measures about 5 and 1/2 barleycorns. It's better than bloody centimeters
No, no! make that 16 or 17 barleycorns, God my math is bad!
*
"larry says... make that 16 or 17 barleycorns" --
"the halls" comprises a "half hide" of hastings county paradise... a hide, of course... being the amount of land that can be cultivated by one eight-ox plow-team in one year.
*
Almost a thousand years of using the same measurement - there's something cool about that.
*
betcha, though... it just drives the other scientists at the "large hadron collider" squirrelly when the brits start throwing around medieval terms of measurement.
*
Post a comment