# Yards as measure **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 14, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yards-as-measure/602914 "2011-11-14T17:34:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yards-as-measure/602914/21 "2011-12-02T21:08:37Z")
> [@qazwart](#): > > Only the British and its colonies used [the English system]. Yes and no. The English system is one of many systems based on the Roman system. D’Artagnan and his friends were quite familiar with the _pied_ and the _pouce_, the _livre_ and the _once_. > [@qazwart](#): > > Heck, there’s not even an agreement between the United States and England about a lot of measurements. Inches and pounds were normalized in 1959, but volumes were quite different. There are also differences in the default meanings of “hundredweight” and “ton”, but the words “long” and “short” can be used to specify. > [@qazwart](#): > > No problem Napoleon tried to conquer Europe, and thus spread the meter all over Europe. The true story is far more complex. > [@qazwart](#): > > By the way, even the bureaucrats had to use some common sense. The meter is defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between one pole to another with the meridian running through Paris. From the North Pole to the Equator. > [@qazwart](#): > > And, metric isn’t quite as universal as its proponents propose. There are two separate metric scales: There is the cgs (centimeter-gram-second) based measurements and the mks (meter-kilogram-second) measurements. (Notice that neither of these systems used the **base** metric measurements. Why not meters, grams, seconds?) The gram is an historic anomaly. The original standard mass was the _grave_, equal to one kilogram, but the word _grave_ became politically incorrect (it sounded too much like German _graf_), and the system was reworked to eliminate the word. There is one other reason to go to metric—I still remember the _years_ of time wasted in elementary school so-called “math” classes teaching the near chaos of the US and Imperial systems. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yards-as-measure/602914/22 "2011-12-02T21:22:44Z")
> [@](#): > > grave became politically incorrect (it sounded too much like German graf) Not to be morbid, but is that why they prefer umlauts to grave accents? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yards-as-measure/602914/23 "2011-12-02T21:55:22Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Perhaps. But the other day, I had a really confusing conversation with a coworker over the number of soda bottles we needed for an activity until I realized that he doesn’t think of soda bottles as holding 2 liters of soda. He thinks of them as bottles of soda that we call twoliters. I doubt this is a unique mindset. This is a very important point. Aside from international compatibility, the biggest advantage of metric is that conversions are easy. But the average person doesn’t do conversions–no one cares how many cubic inches are in a gallon, because gallons are for milk while inches are for waistlines. No one cares how many feet are in a mile because miles are for cars while feet are for room dimensions. I’m not sure it was entirely obvious to early humans that the concept of distance is exactly the same whether you are talking about horses or oceans, nor am I sure that the confusion has entirely evaporated. The only exception I can think of is the kitchen, where it would be nice to know how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon, or whatever. But this is mostly only important for recipe multiplication and is infrequent enough that most are content to simply measure out 16 teaspoons of sugar, say. I don’t think the problem is limited to the English system. I’d very much like to see an international survey testing if people know that a liter fills a 10 centimeter cube, or that a cubic meter of water weighs a tonne. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yards-as-measure/602914.md?page=1)