# Crazy Units **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 21, 2005, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465 "2005-07-21T13:49:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/1 "2005-07-21T13:49:30Z")
Surely you’ve heard of the _millihelen_ which is the amount of beauty necessary to launch one ship. Can we develop a “unit of love” so that when somebody asks “how much do you love me?” one can answer with some specific amount of some “love unit”? There’s that old song that declares “I love you a bushel and a peck” but that seems fairly arbitrary. What’s a good measuring system for Love and how do you establish the gradations within it? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/2 "2005-07-21T13:56:40Z")
The first thing that came to mind is pretty gross. I apologize in advance, It occurs to me that you have to really love somebody to wipe their ass if they became unable to do so for themselves, like if they became paralyzed, etc. So perhaps 1aw is exactly how much you have to love somebody to perform that task for them. No more, no less. Not sure about the gradations. ---
**Author:** ![Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myron_Van_Horowitzski)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/3 "2005-07-21T13:58:51Z")
Isn’t the phrase “love unit” already taken? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/4 "2005-07-21T14:06:17Z")
The Stendhal? “My dear, the love I feel for you is but a millistendhal. Now get off my foot.” ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/5 "2005-07-21T16:13:55Z")
According to Terry Pratchet the unit of faith is an Alp. 1 Alp is the faith necessary to move one mountain. Love might be measured in Rolos the problem being that the last Rolo is allways worth more than any other singular Rolo, so maybe measuring love in Rolos requires some sort of logarithmic scale. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/6 "2005-07-21T16:18:11Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > According to Terry Pratchet the unit of faith is an Alp. 1 Alp is the faith necessary to move one mountain. > Love might be measured in Rolos the problem being that the last Rolo is allways worth more than any other singular Rolo, so maybe measuring love in Rolos requires some sort of logarithmic scale. You may be onto something here. I would personally substitute an M (of the M&M variety) or a Hershey’s “kiss” for the Rolo. And I feel the same way about the last one of either. The Hershey’s “kiss” as a unit might cause confusion with the other variety of “kiss” often used to indicate a portion of Love from one to another. This deserves further discussion IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/7 "2005-07-21T16:33:15Z")
Stendhal always loses! ☹ _slinks off, hunched; sobbing_ ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/8 "2005-07-21T17:05:56Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#): > > Stendhal always loses! ☹ > > _slinks off, hunched; sobbing_ Sorry, but I know next to nothing about Stendhal, even after checking a few links. Can you enlighten us (me anyway) about his relationship to the “love” concept? ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/9 "2005-07-21T18:19:52Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > According to Terry Pratchet the unit of faith is an Alp. 1 Alp is the faith necessary to move one mountain. Wouldn’t it be the amount of faith to move one mountain by one meter? (Similar to how one calorie is the amount to raise 1g of water by 1 degree) ---
**Author:** ![Improv\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Improv\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improv_Geek)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/10 "2005-07-21T18:25:16Z")
I crack up every time I see the commercial where the guy is doing all these things for his woman and then he wouldn’t let her have his Dr. Pepper and he walked out on her after she tried to get a sip of it. So perhaps we can define the love for a person in how much of our favorite food or beverage we’re willing to give to them. 1 sip 1 drink 1 cup 1 liter 1 gallon etc etc etc ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/11 "2005-07-21T18:55:29Z")
> [@TJdude825](#): > > Wouldn’t it be the amount of faith to move one mountain by one meter? (Similar to how one calorie is the amount to raise 1g of water by 1 degree) I’m not sure if Terry Pratchet discribed the distance the mountain had to move. I’d have thought once your faith had gotten the mountain moving it could pretty much be move wherever you wanted it. Getting it to move in the first palce being the most difficult bit. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/12 "2005-07-21T19:43:35Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Sorry, but I know next to nothing about Stendhal, even after checking a few links. Can you enlighten us (me anyway) about his relationship to the “love” concept? Well, for one he wrote [the book of love](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/014044307X/qid=1121974611/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-2822048-3724150?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). (They never told me in school that there was a book!) Essentially, he very extremely fell in love with a woman who was (at least assuming she is similar to the lady in the fist half of The Red and the Black) the perfect woman–both period and particularly for him. Of course, she felt nothing for him. **Love** and **The Red and the Black** both detail the immense feeling of love that he felt, with the prior being a lengthy examination as he tries and make sense out of the emotion that was tearing him apart–in a hope to excise it. Personally, I only got about 5 or 10 pages into Love, but The Red and the Black is perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/13 "2005-07-21T20:03:39Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > The first thing that came to mind is pretty gross. I apologize in advance, > > It occurs to me that you have to really love somebody to wipe their ass if they became unable to do so for themselves, like if they became paralyzed, etc. > > So perhaps 1aw is exactly how much you have to love somebody to perform that task for them. No more, no less. > > Not sure about the gradations. Along the same line is the drawer-hoist. The drawer-hoist or hoist for short, is not as intense as the AW. It’s when the person you love is so hugely pregnant that after she stands up from peeing, she is unable to retrieve her underwear if it slides further down than her knees. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/14 "2005-07-21T20:20:53Z")
Crazy units? I dunno. Freuds? As in, “That fellow is 37.4 freuds off his rocker”. Mind you, I don’t think this is a test I’d do so good on, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/15 "2005-07-21T20:59:50Z")
Well, there’s that old song classic, “Love Comes in Spurts,” so I suggest the spurt as a love unit. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/16 "2005-07-21T21:12:30Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > Crazy units? I dunno. Freuds? As in, “That fellow is 37.4 freuds off his rocker”. He is exactly 3.4 kilobrickshy. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/17 "2005-07-21T21:39:06Z")
If someone loves you 3 yeahs worth, you should be glad. Extrapolate from there. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/18 "2005-07-21T21:41:56Z")
> [@Rufus Xavier](#): > > If someone loves you 3 yeahs worth, you should be glad. Extrapolate from there. So you’re saying that if she loves me yeah yeah yeah, with a love like that, I know I should be glad? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/19 "2005-07-21T21:50:51Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > So you’re saying that if she loves me yeah yeah yeah, with a love like that, I know I should be glad? Righteous! We may have a winner here. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2005, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crazy-units/313465/20 "2005-07-21T21:54:15Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > So you’re saying that if she loves me yeah yeah yeah, with a love like that, I know I should be glad? That’s exactly what I’m saying. Also, to extrapolate, we’ll need a sliding scale of emotions: 1. sad; 2. indifferent; 3. glad; 4. cheerful; 5. happy; 6. delighted; 7. joyful 8. elated; 9. ecstatic; 10. enraptured So if she loves you 6 yeahs (yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah), with a love like that you should be delighted. See?