Conrad,

Regarding your question of Sept. 18th about why only
feet are used for heights. The answer is: it's just
common practice.

Feet are used for height, whether for folks, fences,
mountains, or B-52 bombing raids on Tora Bora, Kingdom
of Afghanistan.

Fathoms are used for depth, whether for making your
way downriver, making your way upriver, finding the
continental shelf, or finding a safe anchorage in
Hampton Roads, Commonwealth of Virginia.

Yards are used for distance, whether for a British
Columbia Lion 3rd down, a Green Bay Packer 4th down,
the Ladies' Magnolia Pistol Club town pistol range, or
opening fire on the Nationalist Socialist Peoples'
Labour Party Third Empire battleship D.K.M. Bismarck.

But, if you are determined to do so, no one can stop
you from using yards for height, feet for depth, and
fathoms for distance. Just don't try to sink the
Bismarck: it's been sunk.

Want another length? See site:

www.weights-and-measures.com

And topics:

Common Linear Measure
Common Nautical Measure

In the bad old days, feet were used to measure tidal range in the United Kingdom and fathoms to measure depths. Now metres are used for both.

This brings considerable advantages to the mariner who might know that his boat draws 8 metres. His charts will tell him that at Avonmouth the high tide is 12.47 metres above datum and that the low tide is 1.98 meters above datum. The tidal range therefore 10.49 metres. Therefore, an area close to Avonmouth that might be a mudflat at low tide can be safely traversed at high tide (currents and oterh regulations permitting). In teh bad old days he would have had to use a tiresome factor of 6 to convert between fathoms and feet.

BTW, depth gauges in all UK harbours that I have visited are calibrated in metres as are all tidal tables and otere navigational information. Likewise, all charts that are onboard the cross-channel ferries show all depths in metres.

BTW, there are more reference sites other than www.weights-and-measures.com. That site has a lot of information, but it is not complete .. no reference site of historic measurements can ever be complete.

Martin, you have not put forth a valid case for metrication. Depths would be better off measured in feet and thus we do not need to go metric just to scrap the fathom. I think we should scrap the hand and measure horses in feet and inches - metrication is entirely superfluous.

btw, Xcole, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei actually translates as 'the National(ist ?) Socialist German Workers' Party'.

All right, I did not putr forward a case for metrication, but I did put forward a case for rationalisation of units. Since most of the traffic in and out of British ports is either a pleasure cruise to return to the same port or to travel to a continental port, it makes sense to use the same units on both sides of the Channel. The chosen set of units was the metric system.

BTW 1 hand = 0.102 metre, so teh best way to replace the hand is to use metres .. a horse that is 12 hands would be about 1.2 metres.

...and boat speed on the high seas is in knots, and the length of boats quoted always in feet!

P.S. I notice that on american roads short distances are measured in feet while here in the UK it's in yards.

I always found that weird because one of the advantages of imperial over metric is it's attempts to put "steps" in to keep the numbers low.

Although in the US, whenever I see "workmen 1500ft" I immediately think 500yards, its not that difficult.

<<
Although in the US, whenever I see "workmen 1500ft" I immediately think 500yards, its not that difficult.
>>

You are nearly there Steve ... From the motorist's point of view 500 yards and 500 metres are about the same!

Yeah, there is a dangerous decimal trend in America, Steve, that is for sure. For one, they do not have stone (and pretty much never have?). This is bizzarre to me, and is even worse than metric (almost). I mean, what in the hell is a 180 lb man!? Well, I know what this is in stone roughly, and also know what a pound is, but the point is why, exactly, would you want to make things difficult for yourself in this way? BTW, some elements of the American variant I like eg. I prefer British proof because, after all, it is British, but American proof is 50% vol., so it is easy to relate the two. Also, American cooking measures are nicer than ours imho.

BTWBTW: I have no problem with fathoms, in fact, it would make much more sense to me if we measured the altitude of planes and the height of mountains in terms of fathoms too. Why? Well, I want to know how many manheights that is in order to relate it to myself, not how far it is to walk (where yards and feet are useful). Everest is, afterall, some 23,000 ft or whatever it was, and some 8,000 odd metres, however, wouldn't it be much nicer to visualise if it were stated as 4,000 mh (manheights) [or mv- man's vertical what have you, so as not to get confused with Miles Per Hour]

But then again, maybe saying it is so many tens of thousands of my foot awes us more, as natural ought (some don't appreciate it's majesty as they should)

<<
I mean, what in the hell is a 180 lb man!?
>>

In pre-metric days most of the Commonwealth would have spoken of a 180 lb man. For example, in my student days (A few years before South Africa went metric), I fought in the under 175 lb Judo contests.

Stones were never used in SA, event though all the other Imperial measures were.

>For one, they do not have stone. This is bizzarre to
>me.... I mean, what in the hell is a 180 lb man!?

>in fact, it would make much more sense to me if we
>measured the altitude of planes and the height of
>mountains in terms of fathoms too...
>wouldn't it be much nicer to visualise if it were
>stated as 4,000 mh (manheights)

Bryan, you don't seem to happy with the current imperial system either, do you ?

Ralf

Acually, I'm *very* happy with it, I just find that experimenting with things like this is fun and has it's rewards. Also, I am just refering to how I would have made it, if I made it from scratch (perhaps)

"You are nearly there Steve ... From the motorist's point of view 500 yards and 500 metres are about the same!"

Work out the difference between 500metres and 500yards in feet.
Then divide it by 121 (ft).
That's how many seconds extra it'd take a car to stop from 100mph.

Please inform me when you intend to take to the road, cheers.