You don’t find that often on common rulers but Stanley carpenter rules have had decimal inches as an option since the early 1800s. They are also used on those triangular architect rules. Today all design, machining and assembly is done in decimal inches. Only carpenters and school kids use fractions.
Then there is my favorite, American inches vs English inches. English rules read from the right end back to the left. American rules read from left to right. Even among us measuring tool collectors there is no consensus for this other then the Americans snubbing their noses at King George.
I like mason rules laid out in bricks. Yes, bricks. The divisions are 1/4 brick, 1/2 brick, 3/4 brick, one brick. And so on. A brick is eight inches.
Or timber rules and board rules laid out in board-feet. One measures a fallen log the other piles of cut lumber.
And my Demolition Tape, once a classified military tool. Carried by military demolition squads.You measure various shaped targets like walls, embankments etc and it shows you how many lbs of TNT needed to breach it.
Yes, I collect measuring tools. Some are fairly valuable being made of ivory and German silver. You want to get me started? Ask about my speed indicator collection.
And then there’s firewood. Four feet (deep) by four feet (high) by eight feet is a full cord. Four feet high by eight feet long by whatever length it’s cut to so as to fit in the stove (usually 16 or 18 inches, but can vary) is a face cord. If the place you’re thinking of buying firewood from just says “cord”, make sure you know which one they’re talking about!
True at retail. When I sold wholesale, I was indeed paid by the 1 1/9 (or, sometimes, by the half bushel, 12-pint carrier, etc.) We had a table of minimum acceptable weight for the particular crop in the particular box; but the purchaser paid by the box (or sometimes pallet), not by the weight.
It could be worse. Back when I was teaching college physics labs, we of course had an abundant supply of metal rulers, with various scales. Well, one time, one group kept on getting results that were consistently just a bit off. Eventually we tracked it down to the ruler they were using, which was marked in increments, not of centimeters, but of 1/30 foot. Because of course that’s what you want, for making 1:30 scale drawings of things. That’s so much more practical than the international standard unit for lengths, right?
There are things called “shrink rulers” which are rulers deliberately manufactured to show an oversized measurement. They’re apparently used in metal casting: you measure the thing you’re casting with a normal ruler, then create a copy using the shrink ruler. The copy is therefore slightly oversized. When you make a casting from it and the metal shrinks, the casting turns out to be the right size.
I have a shrink ruler that I inherited from my great-uncle. It’s labeled “SHRINK 3-8” TO FT" and sure enough, 12 inches on the shrink ruler measures 12 \frac{3}{8} real inches. I didn’t realize until just now when I looked at it that it is a Starrett. All my best measuring tools are Starretts but I’ve never had a use for this thing. Nor have I ever had a hilarious accident where I measured something using the shrink ruler by mistake.
There are a bunch of shrink rules since every metal shrinks a different amount. They use the same technique in pottery and ceramics to allow for the shrinkage during firing. But for pottery it can be even tougher to figure out since each batch of clay can shrink differently. So you roll out a slab of clay and mark it at zero and one foot. Then fire it and re measure and use that calculation.
That’s why us industry people say niner. To avoid confusion. It’s actually pronounced one and one, uh, ninerth bushel. Yeah, ninerth, that’s the ticket.
