I think there is a real need for a “small” unit of length in the English system. There have been lines (1/12”) in the past, and there are thous and microinches, (1/1000” & 1/1,000,000” respectively), but we do seem to have a gap when it comes to units between these. That is, “millimetre-type” units.
By extensive “experiments” whereby I simply get a VERY sharp pencil and try to divide a line (usually tenths of an inch) into the smallest possible percievable amount, I have found the following:

1. 1/100” is more or less the very smallest that my eyes can determine. More like 1/8-1/10 tenths.
2. 1/70” is more or less the smallest I can see *at a glance*.
3. 1/50 is pretty decently sized, though not quite optimal (this unit caters for those of poor sight :) )


Now, we can see that the half-mm is of the 1/50” size, and that in the English system we already have a unit of the “optimal” size- the point (1/72”)- so why not just promote the use of this point? I would say because of its lack of decimal interfceability, among other things, makes it counter intuitive when working up to the inch and not back from it.
Thus, I pull out Andrew Usher’s idea of a 1/60” point from the Inch-Pound-Trice proposals as a worthy proposal of its own. However, Isugggest renaming it to avoid confiusion- perhaps “dot” (dt).


Footrule Division

There are a number of ways you could divide this inch , but I suggest (from experience) that dividing the inch into quarters of 15dt, and each quarter into three lots of five or fives lots of three as better than first into tenths or sixths.
Footrules usually have the last six inches as tenths- I suggest replacing this with a combined 12ths and 10ths- ie 60ths (dots)- second six inches, with English only footrules having 60ths and 40ths or 100ths on one side and 32nds and 16ths on the other. I would like BWMA to think about producing such a rule as opposed to their current which seperated 12ths and 10th and uses both sides. That is, clear rulers are more practical, and if you can combine two of the inch-divisions in one, I feel we are onto a winner.


Marking the rule and speaking it etc.

I feel that writing, for example, 1in 17dt would be far too tedious, therefore put forward use of the colon as the seperator (as opposed to the decimal point and along the lines of digital clocks (also sexagesimal))
Thus, 1:17in. Of course, if expressed in dots only, then I feel that a mere 42dt could be used also.

I am not so ssure about how to express verbally these measurements, but feel that “one inch seventeen” would suffice.

I feel the foot rule should have the dots numbered every quarter inch. So the rule will look like:

Big zero… 15… 30… 45… big 1… 75… 90…105… (etc)

Of course, we might simply rename the 64ths or 16th or promote use of the 40th, but I feel there is a real need here that would nopt disturb the established order, which is also a highly prqactical improvement. Any support, disapproval etc?

above post by me.... damn pop up ads....

Who wuld buy such a ruler - not the engineering profession - in the UK they use metric!

Martin, we'd use it in the US.

Bryan, I like your ideas, but it would completely undermine the beauty of the binary fraction into which the inch is currently divided and is the single basis for divsion in most customary measures.

In my line of work, and for those in US carpentry and cabinet making, we can comfortably use divisions of 1/32" and I know that there are folks who use 1/64" as the smallest. My circle template, for example, begins at 3/64" and goes to 1" in increments of 64ths

The binary fractions are good because people incessantly like to divide things into halves and quarters.

Of course, we might simply rename the 64ths or 16th or promote use of the 40th, but I feel there is a real need here that would nopt disturb the established order, which is also a highly prqactical improvement. Any support, disapproval etc?

I know what you are saying, certainly, hench me suggesting a ruler with both binary and sexagesimal… but I do still understand your point. How about, as an alternative (try this out), renaming the 64th or the 16th so fractions below 16ths are not complex. So, for the moment, we have 1/16 inch = “line”, and so we shall measure things in how many lines, divided down to quarters- this makes fractions in the order of 32nds and 64ths easy. I find fractions of, say, ½ down to the sixteenth level as useful and easy, but fractions beyiond about that are difficult to think in terms of… hench the re being 16 drams to an ounce, and not 256 drams to a pound, as it were.

As for the engineering thing- In the US they use English, I understand thatmany sectors of British industry use English (even from my own personal experience (though it is limited in that respect of working in industry)), and I am also thinking of school children- this new inch- divided into 60ths- would be EXTREMELY useful I feel in a school environment, where the mil and cm are presently used.

An amalgam of threads and proposals by me for reform of English. Will try to get back with a thorough justification (but am having problems with the old bal and chain at the moment… yes, my computer!!

New English system:

60dt = 1 inch
12 in = 1ft
3ft = 1yd
1760yd = 1 mi


(new grain) 75gr = 1 pennyweight/dram
8dram, 600gr = 1 ounce
9600gr = 1 lb

Higher weights= UK and US as are.
Though I suggest in the us the adoption of my “centon” unit (20lb) for body weight and other things (a kind of stne filler to break up weight in the us)

1 tsp = 100gr (of water) = 1/6floz
3tsp = 1 tblsp
10tblsp = 1 gill
20fl = 1 pt = 1200gr, 1.25lb (of water)


160fl = 1 gal = 276.48cuin
1cuft = 1 bushel = 1000fl



Engineers, sciency types and others:
60in pace (ps)
60,000in mile.
100ft chain (as is)

micropound, and milipound.
Naons, and picons etc (decimal fractions of inch)

Ounces, micropound, millipounds, centons and tons to be used.

Also, perhaps use the decisec for time- has some advs.


Plus my en, powe, accel and other units.

Above message should have been in a separate thread.

Also, Matt, METRIC is divided binarily... just lok at all metric good- 50g, 100g, 200g, 400g, 800g etc.

Traditionally, packaged foods and goods were based on binary; hence the 16oz pound.

Grafting deci-metrics onto packaging creates two sizing scales rather than one. Foods that start with 100g progress 200g, 400g, etc. But those that are based on 1kg units divide downwards: 500g, 250g, 125g.

This is one of the reasons why metric sizes do not "settle" or standardise.

Bryan,

You're trying to mix the division systems even more than they already are.

The inch foot and yard are all on base 2-12, and you have kept that except you have divided the inch into 60. It should be divided into binary fractions, *or* as it has always been done into lines and points off the base 12 system.

When the inch is divded binarily, you get fractions following:
1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64
Which mirror the divisons of the foot and pound into fractions.

When it is divided into lines and points, you get
1/12 1/72
Which keeps the base twelve system intact.

As for your mass/volume systems I like the 16 ounce pound matching the 16 ounce pint so that an ounce of water is 1 fluid ounce. That British pint of 20 ounces has to go.

Corr, this looks like fun !

How about my suggestions for reforming the imperial system ?

1. Reduce the "inch" by approximately 0.4mm.

2. Divide this "inch" into twenty fifths.

3. Adopt a 10 inch foot and a forty inch yard.

Much better, don't you think ?

<<
That British pint of 20 ounces has to go.
>>

Matt, the anti-metric lobby cite the British pint as one of the cultural emblems that the EU is trying to destroy. It is used nowadays for beer, cider and milk (nothing else).

If you wish to replace the British pint with the US pint - No way. If you wish to replace it with a metric measure - well that is progress. (If they served cider in 600ml glasses instead of pint glasses, even SteveH would probably agree).

Oddly enough, no, I'd rather have my pint!

When in Europe I notice that the base of their pint glasses have "570ml" written on them.

Bless 'em for giving us a few drops extra!

I do not wish to replace the UK pint with the US pint- one US pint weighs over a pound (one floz would be an ounce if it were 1.73cuin- the US floz is 1.80cuin.

How about rulers produced, then, where the inch is in fortieths. I’m afraid to say this- binary is not used for all things- engineering, for instance, uses decimal
and binary.

I meant change the divisions of the pint into 16 rather than 20 and resize everything so that a pint is a pound of water (the US pint is a pound of wine) and not 1.25 pounds.

As for your divisions of an inch, American Carpenters, Architects, and Building Engineers use binary inch divisions down to 1/32". Civil Engineers use the decimal foot with divisions usually to the 0.01'. Everyone with whom I work has all the equivalents of inches and tenths of a foot memorized backwards and forwards. We all know that 1"=0.0833' and 0.1'=1.2"

In the US, there are 2 types of rulers. One ruler *only for engineers/surveyors* shows the foot divided into tenths and hundredths. The other ruler shows the foot divided into inches and binary fractions thereof.

We seem to have no trouble in the US making the distinction between tenths of a foot and inches.

"When in Europe I notice that the base of their pint glasses have "570ml" written on them."

I've seen 500 ml-glasses on the Continent too. Personally I'd prefer to reduce the pint to half a litre. This is the only way to give it a decent place among its "metric brothers and sisters".

And I repeat:

I'll stick to a "real" pint!

To be perfectly honest I don't mind if the pint of beer stays as I think there are more relevant metrication issues that need to be dealt with. I would however like to see the end of the pint of milk.

With the metric system you can define any size you like with little consequence in terms of complexity and ease of understanding.

The idea of rational sizes is about simple numbers but they are more flexible in metric and more easily adapted.

For example the difference between 568 ml and 570 ml is so pathetically small who the hell cares?

The so called "real pint" is an historically arbitrary unit of measure. Surely the quality of the beer (or cider) itself is what matters.

"How about my suggestions for reforming the imperial system ?

1. Reduce the "inch" by approximately 0.4mm.

2. Divide this "inch" into twenty fifths.

3. Adopt a 10 inch foot and a forty inch yard.

Much better, don't you think ?"

Indeed, I could almost use such a system! Almost.

As far as the 'pint' is concerned in parlance, it will take time to abate after any metrication but eventually would do so. In the longer term I see pints of beer and cider being rationalised to 500 ml in the same way as milk is going, and in the same way that pounds have been rationalised to 500 g, half pounds to 250 g etc.

In the 1820's the Dutch did somethign fairly similar - in particular 1 pond(pound) = 500g and 1 ons(ounce) = 100g.

In 1851,at the time of the Great Exhibition, Britain was looking at going metric and the Dutch actually cautioned the British against the policy of "fiddling" the existing system (it suggests that they hadf a number of problems with "fiddling" the system).

The use of the pond and the ons persisted in the Netherlands until the 1980's when the EU told them to use "kg" on their market stalls and not "ponden". The Dutch, being pragmatic, complied and took money from anybody who was prepared to buy anything from their market stalls.

<<
"How about my suggestions for reforming the imperial system ?
>>

The main argument we have seen against introducing the metric system is that it will not be well received by the people, who are accustomed to their traditional units and see no need or sense in changing. Reforming the imperial system, in my opinion, would generate more public opposition than converting to metric. Furthermore, the confusion caused by the "new" inch vs. the "old" inch, etc., would be endless, as all numbers would have to be adjusted and then we would have to keep track of which numbers have been adjusted already and which are still in the old system, and there would inevitably be confusion.

Reforming the imperial system, whether harmonizing it to binary or hexadecimal or whatever, is a mild version of what the French Revolutionaries did - change the measurement system artificially rather than let the people use what naturally evolved.

"As far as the 'pint' is concerned in parlance, it will take time to abate after any metrication but eventually would do so. In the longer term I see pints of beer and cider being rationalised to 500 ml in the same way as milk is going, and in the same way that pounds have been rationalised to 500 g, half pounds to 250 g etc."

Ahh, but your pint in parlance will not disapear, as this true life story by Joan Pontius suggests:

So then, I'm slowly picking up some Dutch, and we go out for beers, and Filip is always asking for "A Pincha", and I find out that actually he's saying "a pintje", meaning "a small pint". So here we are in metric land, and people are ordering their beers with English terms!

So this is really throwing me, and I say, yeah but Filip, it's not a pint, it's 250 milliliters! Why do you call it a pint? You've got the metric system, why don't you use it? Why don't you order in metric? You don't need those silly english measurements, you have New and Improved Metric units. When you go into a cafe, instead of shouting "Een Pintje Alstublieft" you should say, two-hundred-and-fifty-milliliters alstublieft." And he just gave me a strange look, and mumbled something about it being too hard to say. And ok, maybe giving the precise amount of milliliters is a bit extreme, but he could at least say, "A quarter liter alstublieft." But then maybe even that would be too difficult after lots of beer, so maybe just giving that one unit a name makes sense.

But then that means that something screwy is going on. Not only are the Europeans turning the metric system back into fractions, but they're giving names to them! We change everything into metric, then people find it more useful to use fractions, and then they give names to these fractions, and before you know it, we're back where we started from!

<<
So then, I'm slowly picking up some Dutch, and we go out for beers, and Filip is always asking for "A Pincha", and I find out that actually he's saying "a pintje", meaning "a small pint". So here we are in metric land, and people are ordering their beers with English terms!
>>

Matt, spreekt je dan ook Nederlands? - mijn vader was een Nederlander.

(For those who do not understand Dutch, I was commenting on Matt speaking Dutch and telling him that my father was Dutch).

The Dutch frequently use the diminutive as a figure of speech when no diminutive is actually meant.

I don't know about the States, but in England you might be invited for a "swift half" - ie a beer (probably a pint!) and in Scotland you might be invited to have a "wee dram" - or a whiskey. Either way, the "Swift" or the "wee" is a figure of speech, and, as in the Netherlands, not to be taken literally.

"So then, I'm slowly picking up some Dutch, and we go out for beers, and Filip is always asking for "A Pincha", and I find out that actually he's saying "a pintje", meaning "a small pint". So here we are in metric land, and people are ordering their beers with English terms!"

Joan Pontius is not a Belgian and therefore doesn't fully understand what he's talking about.

Indeed, before Belgium went metric (before 1820) "een pintje" meant "a small pint (of water, milk, beer, wine,...)".
After metrication, though, "een pintje" became synonymous with "een biertje" ("a beer") or "een pilsje" ("a lager"). In other words, it's not a unit of measurement anymore; a "pintje melk" would sound like "a beer with some milk".

When you go to a pub in Belgium (in Flanders actually) and you order "een pintje" you will get 250 ml of lager, which is the normal amount of beer. ("Half litres" are only served on rare occasions.) A couple of years ago Stella Artois started to sell what people now call "drieëndertigers" ("thirty-three'ers"). A "33er" is 33 cl of lager.

Ah you've sold it Conrad! If Britain ever axes the pint of beer, the new names could be a "25", "33" or a "50" with the option of adding "..er" onto the end. This is what they could be advertised as. Another issue is whether the half pint would be replaced with a 250ml or 330ml glass.

I noticed a menu from Prague, Czech Republic had 50cl and 33cl glasses that beer was served in.

"Matt, spreekt je dan ook Nederlands? - mijn vader was een Nederlander."

I guessed right!

The 'nice' parlance of using simple words such as 'pint' could indeed be replaced by '25' or '33'. I would guess that in time it will be 330 ml which replaces the half pint as it is already a standard for drinks measures.

Why not just keep the term "pint"?

If it becomes 500ml soemtime in the future, we can still call it a pint

In fact why not just keep it as it is? 568ml or whatever it is

You are wrong. The way I am suggesting reforming English would NOT meet with public opposition. I now except the 1/60” will not work, but abolishing troy etc would work and would be a good thing. All this nonsense about a 1/40 metre inch is rubbish.

"Why not just keep the term "pint"?

If it becomes 500ml sometime in the future, we can still call it a pint."

I didn't say it *should* be replaced, I simply said that it might happen. I have no doubt that the term 'pint' will endure for many years and decades to come, my point is that it may be the case that it will be replaced in the future.

As for the measurement itself, I think that it will be heading down to 50 cl.

Once again....


No! I'll stick to my normal and recognisable pint ta very much!