An interesting unit of measurment - the denier

mixdenny
Fri, 07 Nov 2025 19:54:01 +0000
Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share

I bought something made of 600D cloth and searched to see exactly what that meant. It is the abbreviation for 600 denier fabric, a rather tough outdoor rated cloth. A denier unit means each strand of yarn weighs 1 gram per 9000 meters. So 600 grams per 9000 meters.

I find this a delightfully arbitrary measurement, showing that the metric system can have strange units as well as the English system. Probably traceable back to some seamtress’ basket of yan or something. “No, no - not 10,000 meters - 9000!”

Reminds me of Robin William’s bit about the invention of golf.

“So, the ball goes in the hole and that’s the game?”

“Oh no! We do it 18 fooking times!”

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