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Why do we measure it that way?
Some very common measurements have very arbitrary beginnings, showing that it's merely standardization that makes them work.
- Foot - The length of Charlemagne's foot, modified in 1305
to be 36 barleycorns laid end to end.
- Inch - The width across the knuckle on King Edgar's thumb
or, obviously, 3 barleycorns.
- Yard - The reach from King Henry I's nose to his royal fingertips, a distance also twice as long as a cubit.
- Cubit - The length of the arm from elbow to fingertip.
- Mile - One thousand double steps of a Roman legionary. Later Queen Bess added more feet so that the mile
would equal eight furlongs.
- Furlong - The length of a furrow a team of oxen could plow
before resting.
- Acre - The amount of land a yoke of oxen would plow in one
day.
- Fathom - The span of a seaman's outstretched arms; 880 fathoms make a mile.
The metric uses the meter, defined precisely as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of orange-red light emitted by the krypton-86 atom, or originally one-ten-millionth the length of the longitude from the North Pole to the equator. The meter is exactly 39.37 inches - or some 118 barleycorns.
The world's oldest active parliamentary body is the Icelandic Althing which met first before the year 1000.
When a man throws an empty cigarette package from an automobile, he is liable to a fine of $50. When a man throws a billboard across a view, he is richly rewarded.
~Pat Brown
