Today I was shown a Swedish carpenter's ruler - one of those things that extends and extends for several feet, with metal joins every 10 inches or so.

It was dual marked in centimetres and Swedish inches. The British inch was about 10.25 Swedish inches, so a Swedish inch must be around 0.976 British inches.

I was told that many Swedish carpenters still use their inches when doing their work.

Sweden also retains its 'Swedish mile', which I think is either 6 or 10 kilometres

I have checked the following site (A reprint of European measures in 1842):

http://www.fonline.de/rs-ebs/geschichte/groessen/mas14.htm#ank1

Exrtacts from the site include:

1 Fuß = 12'' = 144''' = 1,0172 bayer. Fuß = 0,29688 Meter

and

1 Meile = 17 615 bayer. Fuß = 5 141,1 Meter

(German - English dictionary:
Fuß = foot
bayer. = Bavarian
Meile = mile)


I believe that when Sweden metricated, they redefined their mile to be 10km.

10 km?

Goodness thats a long mile!

About 2 British leagues.

How long was the original Swedish mile?

I can hardly believe what Tony says here, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt till a Swedish friend of mine e-mails back to me.

Anyway, a Swedish mile used to be 10.688 km but after 1889 it was redefined as being exactly 10 km.

1 Swedish mile = 36,000 Swedish feet = 18,000 Swedish yards

In case someone's interested: before the metric system was made mandatory in Sweden, a Swedish decimal system was in use already - in addition to their customary system of measurement.
http://hem.fyristorg.com/ojarnef/fys/se-units-comp.txt

Got an e-mail from a Swedish friend of mine:

"1) "Swedish mile".

Yes, indeed! One swedish mile ("mil") was the equivalent of 10,689 metres before the introduction of the metric system. As it was so close to 10 km it was used in colloquial speech (and also in written language) for exactly "10 km".

If you ask the Swedes today about the distance between two cities nobody would say e.g. "400 kms", but "40 mil".

The road signs, however, are in kms. I think one could say that "mil" is used for approximate distances: 1 mil, 1.5 mil, 10 mil. If you want to be more exact you say "451 km" and not "45,1 mil".

I am sure that 90% of the Swedes truly believe that "mil" is official in the metric system.

I think there is an similar situation in Germany. In colloquial speech a "Pfund" is used for 1/2 kg. Before the metric system one "Pfund" was almost 1/2 kg.

2) Swedish carpenters use inches

I am not so sure about that. The term "inch" ("tum" meaning "thumb") is sometimes used here, but only when talking about television screens, tyres etc. But that's the British inch and not the Swedish one."

Second e-mail I received just an hour ago:

"After your recent e-mail I read the newspaper more carefully. "Mil" is not used only in speech. There was an article in "Dagens Nyheter" (which is Swedens biggest morning paper) about a man and the cars he had owned in his life. Everything was related to "mil". Fuel consumption/mil, cost/mil &c. I would say that "mil" is the normal way of expressing "10 kms" and multiples thereof in the swedish language."

Why do I have an sketch of that Swedish Chef from the muppet's show going on in my mind?


Brrrdy Bshky Brrdd dee brrd dee bshky brrr