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![]() | Tod (unit) was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 04 March 2015 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into English units. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on December 24, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep. |
I'm moving the bulk of the content in the English units section of the Medieval weights and measures page. Jimp 13Jul05
Why was a score listed in the units list I've just moved? There was no mention of a dozen and well there should not have been for these are not units of measurements but words for numbers. Jimp 13Jul05
Wendy.krieger 10:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Haven't got time now to wade through it but here's something I've just stumbled on whilst looking on the web for "tower pound measurement".
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/history/measure.html http://www.24carat.co.uk/weightsframe.html
Jimp 15Jul05
Should the section on Scottish Units be moved from the mediæval page? Scotland is not part of England, of course, but that's not the point. Are the Scottish units a subset of the English ones (the U.S. ones are & the U.S. isn't part of England either)? Jimp 19Jul05
Then what do we do with them? Should we make a new article, Scottish unit, and put them there? There's hardly enough there to warrant a whole article ... is there? There's no question of putting them back on the mediæval page because I've split it up by culture & then remerged it with the ancient page. Jimp 7Sep05
Gene, you say "The English units are the ones used in the U.S." they were used in the U.K., Ireland & the British Empire/Commonwealth to ... though the ones used here were (a) different version(s). Jimp 2Nov05
Sad, now someone fixed that typo (“Untied States”). I love it. Christoph Päper 12:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
== Rktect's additions ==
I'd like Rktect to explain what the relevance of his references are. Some books he added:
among many others. It seems that he's again just pasting down his ancient civilizations references everywhere he can. Those books are not relevant to English unit. -- ( ☺drini♫| ☎) 19:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
with pictures of Weights from Mesopotamia found at Lothal and weights from Mohenjo Daro and Harrappa found at Falika.
There is a progression, a sequence of steps from origininal independant invention, to final well refined standardized usage. A big part of that is who talked to whom when, and what were they discussing. In the Epic of Gillgamesh (and other stories of the period) you can look at what the word is in the original Sumerian and what the word is in the English translations. The word for cubit in Sumerian is ku. The standard Sumerian volume for grain is a measure called a gur. Gilgamesh and Enkidu go to Lebanon and get Cedar measured in ku, they go to the mountains and get metals measured in talents, mina and shekles, they go to Dilmun and Makkan and Melluha in ships that are designed to cross seas.
You can read about ships of 60 gur coming from Melluha, Makkan and Dilmun to the quays of Agade in the writings of Sargon, You can read about them in the law codes of Hamurrabi. That tells you there is an internationally recognized standard. Then you can add to that "Bahrain through the Ages", "The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia", "The letter of Nanse", the rod of Gudea and all the tablets mentioning agricultural accounts from the Library at Ebla and add to that the mentions in the Code of Hammurrabbi. At the end of the day you have collected a number of references to units of measure which support one another to the effect that there were cubits used in Mesopotamia to measure the length of strides, the height of gates, the size of the trees used to get the boards to make the gates, the size of the ships, the size of the baskets used to carry the grain, the size of fields, the equivalent value of the containers of grain in silver and copper.
Its all part of the collection of references Rktect 15:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe someone should point out that these measurements only apply to ENGLAND! In the rest of Europe the measures were totally different (besides having totally different names). Luis rib 20:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Might also want to point out that these measures were in no way precise and that the modern equivalents are totally approximated.... Morgan2317 03:41, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Its not only foolish using such inferior pathetic untis as these are. Its stupid. CANT you guys get it that my weight is 70 kg and not 140 pounds? and that im 170cm tall and not 5 foot and 7 inches? i bought 4 liters water, not a galleon. Stop bieng one of the stupid ones and join us smart and intelligent people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.100.13.232 ( talk • contribs) .
Alright, check it out... These comments are old, that's fine, but I'm still gonna chip in: For those of you doing this anti-American bashing, let me just remind you that this website is American-based, started by an American, and even uses American spelling in the name. If anything, Jimbo could easily command that all measurements be rendered into the American fashion. Secondly, try doing computer-related things in a base-10 system, where everything is base-8. Go ahead, try it. Tell me how it works out. — ᚹᚩᛞᛖᚾᚻᛖᛚᛗ ( ᚷᛖᛋᛈᚱᛖᚳ) 01:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Under the volume section, a mouthful is listed as equal to 1/2 ounce - this makes no sense unless the material which this applies to for is listed. e.g. a mouthful of lead will weigh a lot more than a mouthful of water...
Currently the article says that a cask is 64 gallons, a barrel is two casks, and a barrel is 32 gallons, which would be half a cask. There's a problem here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.25.16.4 ( talk) 13:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
isn't oz. the abbreviation for ounce (weight)? the entire section uses the abbreviation oz. when it should be floz (fluid ounce). I was going to change it myself but I'm not sure if this was intentional, and if it is I don't want to waste anybody's time with changing it back if I'm wrong. Hallaman3 ( talk) 03:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Why revert? The exact value doesn't take up much space and adds information. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 15:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
The disambiguation page for "handle" says that a handle is 1.76 liters. I always use the word handle to describe a big bottle o' rum - should it be on here? It's what I came here looking for after all. -- 84.198.27.16 03:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The final paragraph of the intro reads:
Now, I appreciate the rhetorical power of making this paragraph illustrate the very problem it describes, but it is perhaps less than useful. What do "it" and "this system" in the above paragraph refer to? The measurements used in England? The measurements used in the US? Or could we rephrase the last two sentences so that they doesn't imply that the term applies to one specific system? VoluntarySlave ( talk) 19:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
This article documents a number of historical units which are no longer of practical use. It is best these be kept in their own article, so they don't clutter up the " United States customary units" article; people reading that article are probably interested in units still in use (at least occasionally). However, the introduction of this article is very unfocused and needs an overhaul. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 02:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
The page English units is blocking this rename, and I'm afraid I've made a mess of it. This page needs to become English units, and English unit needs to redirect to English units. Previously this page was called English unit but it referred to a system of units, so it had the wrong name for what it was. Jdpipe ( talk) 02:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Now that this page contains only UK historical measurements, and does not refer to US measurements, all content from this page should be merged with Imperial units. This page should then be deleted and replaced with a simple disambiguation page directing people to either:
Rationale: I am English (British) and recognise that the term "English units" generally refers to USCS, not Imperial. "English units" is not commonly used in England today to describe the historical system of measurement once used in England. The current content of this page is anachronistic. Andrew Oakley ( talk) 10:29, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Imperial units and English units should not be merged. Imperial Units is about the system defined by the 1824 UK law. English units is the article that describes the system of units in use in England prior to that standardisation. There is no conflict, and little overlap. Rhialto ( talk) 16:12, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
ok, specifically, since the imperial units article is intended to describe the 1824 weights and measures reformation, the following items in the English units article have no place in the imperial units article, as they were made obsolete by that act:
poppyseed barleycorn digit finger hand nail palm shaftment span cubit ell carucate bovate virgate hide knight's fee hundred Mouthful Jigger Jack or Jackpot Cup Pottle or Half Gallon Kenning Cask, Strike, or Coomb Hogshead Butt or Pipe Tun, all discussion of wine measure and brewery volume measures, nail clove tod, all discussion of troy tower mercantile and tron weights (basically, all but avoirdupois)
Conversely, any discussion of the specific definitions of certain units (foot, yard, pound, and so on) that were defined in the 1824 act are afterwards, along with discussion of teh modern usage of the units, belongs in the imperial units article.
Rhialto ( talk) 22:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
There is a large amount of information in the imperial units article, and I have no doubt that a dedicated writer to expand the English units article quite considerably in detail (currently, it is little more than a list). Both together would put the overall article well above the recommended article length standard. And given that all units in the imperial units article have, until very recently (certainly within the adult lifetimes of the average wikipedian) been legally defined, whereas almost none of those in the English units one have (and some of those that are similarly named have radically different values from their modern definitions), there is a definite split in how the information can be logically organised.
I can see a case for a clearly-worded hat paragraph on each article directing readers to teh appropriate article, but not for a merger. Rhialto ( talk) 23:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
This article has degenerated to the point where it was alternatively claiming that
Both notions are utter hogwash. Gene Nygaard ( talk) 03:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
site:*.co.uk "imperial unit" -wikipedia 163 hits site:*.co.uk "english unit" -wikipedia 141 hits
The results are skewed by the fact that "english unit" also refers to study course on the English language. The first two relevant hits are on page 3, and from the spelling conventions, they are obviously written by American authors, so can't be counted as UK usage. There's also a comment on the slug on that page, in which a UK author notes that Americans call it an "English unit" (and that the English never commonly used it, even in its own relevant context). The closest thing to a relevant UK usage was on page 7 (ie. more than halfway through the sum total of ALL results), in which the BBC website used the word to discuss NASA's mistakes in some project where the "metric and english" units were mixed up. In context though, it isn't clear whether those are the reporter's own words of merely the words of the original (US-based) source. In contrast, almost every hit from the start for "imperial unit" is relevant. Rhialto ( talk) 10:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
The Volume section contradicts itself. It says a jigger is 1.5 ounces, and a jack is "Jigger × 2 = 2 oz." So how big is a jack, 2 or 3 ounces?
Here in the US a pony is .75 ounce, a jigger is 1.5 ounce, and a jack is half a gill, or 2 ounce. Rees11 ( talk) 15:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
The math for "cask" also seems in error. PaulD 20 October 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.46.200.232 ( talk) 23:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
I looked through the references and the only one that seems to specifically cover pre-1825 "English" units (as opposed to US or Imperial) is Klein. My library has a copy but it's in storage. It doesn't mention jiggers. Apparently a jigger was 1 ounce at one time but is now, at least in the US, 1.5. A pony is always half a jigger. I'm not sure about casks, I thought a cask was a container and could be any size. I'll keep looking for sources. For now I'm going to just take out cask, since it's obviously wrong. Rees11 ( talk) 13:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I've removed the mentions of jiggers and ponies, as they're U.S. terms. I also removed mouthfuls and handfuls. Klein, an American, does mention the jigger as a unit, saying it was the term for a quarter-gill in Elizabethan England, and that it was also called a "handful", and that half a jigger was called a "mouthful", but he's wrong. It's a misinterpretation of a table created by Leake in "The Old Egyptian Medical Papyri", Kansas 1952. Leake mistakenly includes the U.S. term jigger, which he equates to an ounce, in a list of what he calls "old English measures". But there's no etymological evidence to support that. He also lists the terms mouthful, handful, cupful, jugful, and pitcherful; it's not clear whether he purports these to be actual ancient Egyptian units, or figurative descriptions of multiples of the Egyptian ro unit, but he certainly doesn't intend to say they were old English units. I don't know if Klein read Leake directly, or if it was filtered through some other source, but when he talks about the "the jigger, or handful, of Elizabethan England" and "the Elizabethan mouthful", he's simply gone off the rails. -- IamNotU ( talk) 17:02, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
This article is supposed to be about English units, not US or Imperial. So I find it confusing that it says things like this:
Gill: Jack × 2 = 4 oz (U.S.) or 5 oz (imperial)
Shouldn't it just say "Gill: Jack × 2 = 4 oz"? Rees11 ( talk) 14:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
IMO This article is extremely confused and confusing as to which system of measure is being referred to, as has been alluded to above. It desperately needs clarification. As a well-educated British person, I believe that the proper term for the measure we use if it is not metric is "Imperial", not "English". It could be that some people in this PC-obsessed world are starting to use the term "English" because they don't want to be "Imperialistic", but that doesn't change the fact that the measures themselves are different. Please can we have a clear statement as to what is meant, avoiding terms like English as (a) it excludes the Welsh, Irish and Scots and (b) is apparently very confusing for citizens of the USA who believe their system is "English" - although why I can't imagine :-)
In particular, the comment in the para above "Jack × 2 = 4 oz (U.S.) or 5 oz (imperial)" should IMO read just "Jack × 2 = 5 oz" as it should be understood that we're talking Imperial units from the start. For the US equivalent, there is already a separate Wiki page.
I could see some benefit in having a clear comparison page that compares the units, as is done in some other fields; this should be a table including the common names and their conversions. However, pages like the current one are not the place, as the result is the confusion vividly seen above.
BTW I have re-rendered the graph provided by Crissov using the filename English_mass_units_graph_Ai.svg, which might be clearer. Feel free to use!
Ruth RIvimey 13:23, 2 Dec 2010 (UTC)
Ruth RIvimey 23:53, 2 Dec 2010 (UTC)
It is written here that a dram/drachm (dr) is 27.34375 gr. How can this be a sixteenth of an ounce when 1 ounce (oz) ≈ 28 g? Sae1962 ( talk) 12:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Please don't stick metric conversion templates all over this article at random. The modern SI system is irrelevant to the purpose of this article, which is to describe a no-longer-extant system of units. Any conversion factors you find in a template will be wrong, and many of the units have no fixed conversion to modern units any way. You will be misleading readers badly if you insist that a "firkin" is mumblety-mumble cubic centimeters or whatever half-baked conversions someone had put into the last revision of a table. -- Wtshymanski ( talk) 05:13, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
The second paragraph has problems.
No they don't. Pre-1824 British silver pennies and post-1824 British silver pennies don't even belong to the same monetary system. What all those systems have in common is the use of gold, silver, and other metals in the same column of the periodic table of elements, measured in weight systems strongly influenced by the Roman Empire and Charlemagne's Empire. If you don't mind, I'm going to delete that sentence too.
Zyxwv99 ( talk) 22:47, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
"After the Norman conquest, Roman units were reintroduced. The resultant system of English units was a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems."
"Later development of the English system continued by defining the units by law in the Magna Carta of 1215,..."
Zyxwv99 ( talk) 02:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Gentlemen these facts discussed in "British weights and measures: Zupko 1977 allow the calculation of these ancient measures
The Magna Carta of 1215 established the rights of English citizens, limited the power of their kings, and later served as a model for the U.S. constitution of 1789. This document was forced onto King John of England by feudal barons in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. Among these rights was that of a fair and honest set of standard measures to be used by all in the transactions of commerce. The Magna Carta in Section 35 states:
Let there be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm; and one measure of ale; and one measure of corn, to wit, "The London quarter"; and one width of cloth (whether dyed, or russet, or "halberget" to wit, two ells within the selvedges; of weights also let it be as of measures.
In 1266 King Henry III issued the Composito, a new declaration which replaced the Saxon Rod of 15 Saxon feet with a rod of 16.5 new English feet while maintaining the exact length of the Rod. This new Rod established all land measurements in English feet rather than the previous Saxon feet. The new length of the English foot is unchanged today at 304.8 mm in the modern metric system.
The measure of pints, gallons, and bushels had been guaranteed by the London Quarter which in turn had been based on a smaller ancient Celtic foot. The dimensions of the legal volumes would need to be reestablished using very odd fractions of the new feet and inches or a new method, independent of the length of the foot, would need to be found.
In 1303 King Edward 1st declared that the original London Quarter was lost and issued a decree intended to establish its equivalent volume as well as the resulting wheat and wine standards. Expanding upon the Magna Carta in his “Tractatus de ponderibus et mensuris”, he decreed:
The London Quarter mentioned in the Magna Carta be fixed at a capacity of 8 struck (level) bushels. It declared that 8 tower pounds of wheat made the gallon of wine and that 8 gallons of wine made the London Bushel.
Gentlemen this bushel would weigh exactly 64 mercantile pounds of water and a simple calculation in metric units documented by Zupko yield a weight of 28 kilograms and a volume of 28 liters exactly or 28000 cubic cm. as an engineer i would expect this volume to be described as a cube of certain dimensions. the cube root of 28000 is 303.658 mm. this length is within 1/2 mm of the length of the Ancient Minoan foot. We then can consider the bushel to be one ancient cubic foot, the gallon to be a cube of half this size, and the quarter a cube twice this size. The pint would be a cube 1/4 this size. The old saying "a pint a pound the world round" would have been exact and true in the days of the Magna Carta.
Roland A. Boucher, Engineer Yale 55 11 deerspring Irvine Ca 92604 e-mail rolandfly@sbcglobal.net
Naturally, the content of this article should be focused on historical units; the imperial & US systems have their own articles. It is one thing to focus an article on this or that aspect of a subject; to conflate the article's focus with the definition of the subject is something else. The article is now claiming that with the introduction of the imperial system these units ceased being English. The imperial system simply refined the units; how did it remove the Englishness from them? Surely 1824 wasn't the first time the system was refined. Similarly, bringing the units to America (as with Australia, Canada, etc.) didn't cancel their Englishness. It was still the same set of units (they just happened to get refined a little differently), just as the Americans still speak English. JIMp talk· cont 00:24, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
The article starts with "English units are the historical units of measurement used in England up to 1824, which evolved as a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of units." The "up to 1824" clearly excludes the imperial system. The "in England" seems to exclude US units too. The rest of he article, however, implies otherwise. It's probably time for a bit of a tidy up. As for creating another article to properly cover the topic, how about Historic English units? The new Historic English units article would cover the pre-1824/pre-US period and this article would be the general page. In other words, split out all the details of the older systems into a new article leaving this to cover the general topic. I'm just not sure that we're at the stage yet where that would be necessary. JIMp talk· cont 07:23, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Chart showing the relationships of weight measures (in the Weight section) has several problems: 1) WP:OR, 2) "Source: made from scratch with Graphviz based on data from en:English unit" WP:CIRCULAR, and 3) it historically inaccurate.
The pennyweight is derived from the dirhem, not the grain. The Tower weight system used a different sort of grain (wheat grain) not related to the grain used today (barleycorn). Although the Troy and Apothecary systems seem to be related, it is not clear which came first. And finally, the avoirdupois pound came into general use in the early 1300s, but didn't acquire a grain unit until 1588.
For these reasons, I feel the diagram should be removed. Zyxwv99 ( talk) 14:06, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
The whole article needs a restructuring and reformatting!
To clarify the purpose of the article, English units refer to the measurement systems legally defined in the U.K. up until 1963, when Imperial units were defined.
Many of the measurements listed here are actually from the English apothecaries' system, which were not (always? ever?) defined by English or U.K. laws, so those need to be figured out and separated, while others are from the English avoirdupois system.
Also, instead of lists of measurements, all of these should be presented as tables, with appropriate columns for conversion to Imperial and Metric measurements, at least.
I am going to start revising the Volume section along the lines proposed here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PetesGuide ( talk • contribs) 19:44, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
The text shows the Roman Mile to be 1000 paces yet the chart calculates as 2000 paces. Perhaps paces and steps are transposed in the chart. 2A01:4B00:D307:ED00:C05B:2D80:5570:EF4F ( talk) 11:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
The article starts: "English units are the units of measurement used in England up to 1826 (when they were replaced by Imperial units),..." I think this is basically false. In 1826, nothing was replaced by anything; what happened was that the existing, continuing units were codified, clarified, standardised. I think this sort of claim is symptomatic of a very general WP problem. It is very good at dividing things up: you simply find two slightly different statements about something, but very poor at unifying things, and showing a grasp of the wider picture. (There is a very similar problem with claims that all the different varieties of Chinese character - things like 木 田 綺 原 - are somehow completely different objects, labelled with there name in the language of the place they are being used. Completely irrelevant to this particular instance, yet illustrative of a general problem.) Imaginatorium ( talk) 17:19, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
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![]() | Tod (unit) was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 04 March 2015 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into English units. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on December 24, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep. |
I'm moving the bulk of the content in the English units section of the Medieval weights and measures page. Jimp 13Jul05
Why was a score listed in the units list I've just moved? There was no mention of a dozen and well there should not have been for these are not units of measurements but words for numbers. Jimp 13Jul05
Wendy.krieger 10:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Haven't got time now to wade through it but here's something I've just stumbled on whilst looking on the web for "tower pound measurement".
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/history/measure.html http://www.24carat.co.uk/weightsframe.html
Jimp 15Jul05
Should the section on Scottish Units be moved from the mediæval page? Scotland is not part of England, of course, but that's not the point. Are the Scottish units a subset of the English ones (the U.S. ones are & the U.S. isn't part of England either)? Jimp 19Jul05
Then what do we do with them? Should we make a new article, Scottish unit, and put them there? There's hardly enough there to warrant a whole article ... is there? There's no question of putting them back on the mediæval page because I've split it up by culture & then remerged it with the ancient page. Jimp 7Sep05
Gene, you say "The English units are the ones used in the U.S." they were used in the U.K., Ireland & the British Empire/Commonwealth to ... though the ones used here were (a) different version(s). Jimp 2Nov05
Sad, now someone fixed that typo (“Untied States”). I love it. Christoph Päper 12:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
== Rktect's additions ==
I'd like Rktect to explain what the relevance of his references are. Some books he added:
among many others. It seems that he's again just pasting down his ancient civilizations references everywhere he can. Those books are not relevant to English unit. -- ( ☺drini♫| ☎) 19:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
with pictures of Weights from Mesopotamia found at Lothal and weights from Mohenjo Daro and Harrappa found at Falika.
There is a progression, a sequence of steps from origininal independant invention, to final well refined standardized usage. A big part of that is who talked to whom when, and what were they discussing. In the Epic of Gillgamesh (and other stories of the period) you can look at what the word is in the original Sumerian and what the word is in the English translations. The word for cubit in Sumerian is ku. The standard Sumerian volume for grain is a measure called a gur. Gilgamesh and Enkidu go to Lebanon and get Cedar measured in ku, they go to the mountains and get metals measured in talents, mina and shekles, they go to Dilmun and Makkan and Melluha in ships that are designed to cross seas.
You can read about ships of 60 gur coming from Melluha, Makkan and Dilmun to the quays of Agade in the writings of Sargon, You can read about them in the law codes of Hamurrabi. That tells you there is an internationally recognized standard. Then you can add to that "Bahrain through the Ages", "The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia", "The letter of Nanse", the rod of Gudea and all the tablets mentioning agricultural accounts from the Library at Ebla and add to that the mentions in the Code of Hammurrabbi. At the end of the day you have collected a number of references to units of measure which support one another to the effect that there were cubits used in Mesopotamia to measure the length of strides, the height of gates, the size of the trees used to get the boards to make the gates, the size of the ships, the size of the baskets used to carry the grain, the size of fields, the equivalent value of the containers of grain in silver and copper.
Its all part of the collection of references Rktect 15:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe someone should point out that these measurements only apply to ENGLAND! In the rest of Europe the measures were totally different (besides having totally different names). Luis rib 20:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Might also want to point out that these measures were in no way precise and that the modern equivalents are totally approximated.... Morgan2317 03:41, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Its not only foolish using such inferior pathetic untis as these are. Its stupid. CANT you guys get it that my weight is 70 kg and not 140 pounds? and that im 170cm tall and not 5 foot and 7 inches? i bought 4 liters water, not a galleon. Stop bieng one of the stupid ones and join us smart and intelligent people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.100.13.232 ( talk • contribs) .
Alright, check it out... These comments are old, that's fine, but I'm still gonna chip in: For those of you doing this anti-American bashing, let me just remind you that this website is American-based, started by an American, and even uses American spelling in the name. If anything, Jimbo could easily command that all measurements be rendered into the American fashion. Secondly, try doing computer-related things in a base-10 system, where everything is base-8. Go ahead, try it. Tell me how it works out. — ᚹᚩᛞᛖᚾᚻᛖᛚᛗ ( ᚷᛖᛋᛈᚱᛖᚳ) 01:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Under the volume section, a mouthful is listed as equal to 1/2 ounce - this makes no sense unless the material which this applies to for is listed. e.g. a mouthful of lead will weigh a lot more than a mouthful of water...
Currently the article says that a cask is 64 gallons, a barrel is two casks, and a barrel is 32 gallons, which would be half a cask. There's a problem here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.25.16.4 ( talk) 13:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
isn't oz. the abbreviation for ounce (weight)? the entire section uses the abbreviation oz. when it should be floz (fluid ounce). I was going to change it myself but I'm not sure if this was intentional, and if it is I don't want to waste anybody's time with changing it back if I'm wrong. Hallaman3 ( talk) 03:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Why revert? The exact value doesn't take up much space and adds information. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 15:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
The disambiguation page for "handle" says that a handle is 1.76 liters. I always use the word handle to describe a big bottle o' rum - should it be on here? It's what I came here looking for after all. -- 84.198.27.16 03:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The final paragraph of the intro reads:
Now, I appreciate the rhetorical power of making this paragraph illustrate the very problem it describes, but it is perhaps less than useful. What do "it" and "this system" in the above paragraph refer to? The measurements used in England? The measurements used in the US? Or could we rephrase the last two sentences so that they doesn't imply that the term applies to one specific system? VoluntarySlave ( talk) 19:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
This article documents a number of historical units which are no longer of practical use. It is best these be kept in their own article, so they don't clutter up the " United States customary units" article; people reading that article are probably interested in units still in use (at least occasionally). However, the introduction of this article is very unfocused and needs an overhaul. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 02:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
The page English units is blocking this rename, and I'm afraid I've made a mess of it. This page needs to become English units, and English unit needs to redirect to English units. Previously this page was called English unit but it referred to a system of units, so it had the wrong name for what it was. Jdpipe ( talk) 02:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Now that this page contains only UK historical measurements, and does not refer to US measurements, all content from this page should be merged with Imperial units. This page should then be deleted and replaced with a simple disambiguation page directing people to either:
Rationale: I am English (British) and recognise that the term "English units" generally refers to USCS, not Imperial. "English units" is not commonly used in England today to describe the historical system of measurement once used in England. The current content of this page is anachronistic. Andrew Oakley ( talk) 10:29, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Imperial units and English units should not be merged. Imperial Units is about the system defined by the 1824 UK law. English units is the article that describes the system of units in use in England prior to that standardisation. There is no conflict, and little overlap. Rhialto ( talk) 16:12, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
ok, specifically, since the imperial units article is intended to describe the 1824 weights and measures reformation, the following items in the English units article have no place in the imperial units article, as they were made obsolete by that act:
poppyseed barleycorn digit finger hand nail palm shaftment span cubit ell carucate bovate virgate hide knight's fee hundred Mouthful Jigger Jack or Jackpot Cup Pottle or Half Gallon Kenning Cask, Strike, or Coomb Hogshead Butt or Pipe Tun, all discussion of wine measure and brewery volume measures, nail clove tod, all discussion of troy tower mercantile and tron weights (basically, all but avoirdupois)
Conversely, any discussion of the specific definitions of certain units (foot, yard, pound, and so on) that were defined in the 1824 act are afterwards, along with discussion of teh modern usage of the units, belongs in the imperial units article.
Rhialto ( talk) 22:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
There is a large amount of information in the imperial units article, and I have no doubt that a dedicated writer to expand the English units article quite considerably in detail (currently, it is little more than a list). Both together would put the overall article well above the recommended article length standard. And given that all units in the imperial units article have, until very recently (certainly within the adult lifetimes of the average wikipedian) been legally defined, whereas almost none of those in the English units one have (and some of those that are similarly named have radically different values from their modern definitions), there is a definite split in how the information can be logically organised.
I can see a case for a clearly-worded hat paragraph on each article directing readers to teh appropriate article, but not for a merger. Rhialto ( talk) 23:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
This article has degenerated to the point where it was alternatively claiming that
Both notions are utter hogwash. Gene Nygaard ( talk) 03:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
site:*.co.uk "imperial unit" -wikipedia 163 hits site:*.co.uk "english unit" -wikipedia 141 hits
The results are skewed by the fact that "english unit" also refers to study course on the English language. The first two relevant hits are on page 3, and from the spelling conventions, they are obviously written by American authors, so can't be counted as UK usage. There's also a comment on the slug on that page, in which a UK author notes that Americans call it an "English unit" (and that the English never commonly used it, even in its own relevant context). The closest thing to a relevant UK usage was on page 7 (ie. more than halfway through the sum total of ALL results), in which the BBC website used the word to discuss NASA's mistakes in some project where the "metric and english" units were mixed up. In context though, it isn't clear whether those are the reporter's own words of merely the words of the original (US-based) source. In contrast, almost every hit from the start for "imperial unit" is relevant. Rhialto ( talk) 10:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
The Volume section contradicts itself. It says a jigger is 1.5 ounces, and a jack is "Jigger × 2 = 2 oz." So how big is a jack, 2 or 3 ounces?
Here in the US a pony is .75 ounce, a jigger is 1.5 ounce, and a jack is half a gill, or 2 ounce. Rees11 ( talk) 15:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
The math for "cask" also seems in error. PaulD 20 October 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.46.200.232 ( talk) 23:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
I looked through the references and the only one that seems to specifically cover pre-1825 "English" units (as opposed to US or Imperial) is Klein. My library has a copy but it's in storage. It doesn't mention jiggers. Apparently a jigger was 1 ounce at one time but is now, at least in the US, 1.5. A pony is always half a jigger. I'm not sure about casks, I thought a cask was a container and could be any size. I'll keep looking for sources. For now I'm going to just take out cask, since it's obviously wrong. Rees11 ( talk) 13:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I've removed the mentions of jiggers and ponies, as they're U.S. terms. I also removed mouthfuls and handfuls. Klein, an American, does mention the jigger as a unit, saying it was the term for a quarter-gill in Elizabethan England, and that it was also called a "handful", and that half a jigger was called a "mouthful", but he's wrong. It's a misinterpretation of a table created by Leake in "The Old Egyptian Medical Papyri", Kansas 1952. Leake mistakenly includes the U.S. term jigger, which he equates to an ounce, in a list of what he calls "old English measures". But there's no etymological evidence to support that. He also lists the terms mouthful, handful, cupful, jugful, and pitcherful; it's not clear whether he purports these to be actual ancient Egyptian units, or figurative descriptions of multiples of the Egyptian ro unit, but he certainly doesn't intend to say they were old English units. I don't know if Klein read Leake directly, or if it was filtered through some other source, but when he talks about the "the jigger, or handful, of Elizabethan England" and "the Elizabethan mouthful", he's simply gone off the rails. -- IamNotU ( talk) 17:02, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
This article is supposed to be about English units, not US or Imperial. So I find it confusing that it says things like this:
Gill: Jack × 2 = 4 oz (U.S.) or 5 oz (imperial)
Shouldn't it just say "Gill: Jack × 2 = 4 oz"? Rees11 ( talk) 14:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
IMO This article is extremely confused and confusing as to which system of measure is being referred to, as has been alluded to above. It desperately needs clarification. As a well-educated British person, I believe that the proper term for the measure we use if it is not metric is "Imperial", not "English". It could be that some people in this PC-obsessed world are starting to use the term "English" because they don't want to be "Imperialistic", but that doesn't change the fact that the measures themselves are different. Please can we have a clear statement as to what is meant, avoiding terms like English as (a) it excludes the Welsh, Irish and Scots and (b) is apparently very confusing for citizens of the USA who believe their system is "English" - although why I can't imagine :-)
In particular, the comment in the para above "Jack × 2 = 4 oz (U.S.) or 5 oz (imperial)" should IMO read just "Jack × 2 = 5 oz" as it should be understood that we're talking Imperial units from the start. For the US equivalent, there is already a separate Wiki page.
I could see some benefit in having a clear comparison page that compares the units, as is done in some other fields; this should be a table including the common names and their conversions. However, pages like the current one are not the place, as the result is the confusion vividly seen above.
BTW I have re-rendered the graph provided by Crissov using the filename English_mass_units_graph_Ai.svg, which might be clearer. Feel free to use!
Ruth RIvimey 13:23, 2 Dec 2010 (UTC)
Ruth RIvimey 23:53, 2 Dec 2010 (UTC)
It is written here that a dram/drachm (dr) is 27.34375 gr. How can this be a sixteenth of an ounce when 1 ounce (oz) ≈ 28 g? Sae1962 ( talk) 12:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Please don't stick metric conversion templates all over this article at random. The modern SI system is irrelevant to the purpose of this article, which is to describe a no-longer-extant system of units. Any conversion factors you find in a template will be wrong, and many of the units have no fixed conversion to modern units any way. You will be misleading readers badly if you insist that a "firkin" is mumblety-mumble cubic centimeters or whatever half-baked conversions someone had put into the last revision of a table. -- Wtshymanski ( talk) 05:13, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
The second paragraph has problems.
No they don't. Pre-1824 British silver pennies and post-1824 British silver pennies don't even belong to the same monetary system. What all those systems have in common is the use of gold, silver, and other metals in the same column of the periodic table of elements, measured in weight systems strongly influenced by the Roman Empire and Charlemagne's Empire. If you don't mind, I'm going to delete that sentence too.
Zyxwv99 ( talk) 22:47, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
"After the Norman conquest, Roman units were reintroduced. The resultant system of English units was a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems."
"Later development of the English system continued by defining the units by law in the Magna Carta of 1215,..."
Zyxwv99 ( talk) 02:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Gentlemen these facts discussed in "British weights and measures: Zupko 1977 allow the calculation of these ancient measures
The Magna Carta of 1215 established the rights of English citizens, limited the power of their kings, and later served as a model for the U.S. constitution of 1789. This document was forced onto King John of England by feudal barons in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. Among these rights was that of a fair and honest set of standard measures to be used by all in the transactions of commerce. The Magna Carta in Section 35 states:
Let there be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm; and one measure of ale; and one measure of corn, to wit, "The London quarter"; and one width of cloth (whether dyed, or russet, or "halberget" to wit, two ells within the selvedges; of weights also let it be as of measures.
In 1266 King Henry III issued the Composito, a new declaration which replaced the Saxon Rod of 15 Saxon feet with a rod of 16.5 new English feet while maintaining the exact length of the Rod. This new Rod established all land measurements in English feet rather than the previous Saxon feet. The new length of the English foot is unchanged today at 304.8 mm in the modern metric system.
The measure of pints, gallons, and bushels had been guaranteed by the London Quarter which in turn had been based on a smaller ancient Celtic foot. The dimensions of the legal volumes would need to be reestablished using very odd fractions of the new feet and inches or a new method, independent of the length of the foot, would need to be found.
In 1303 King Edward 1st declared that the original London Quarter was lost and issued a decree intended to establish its equivalent volume as well as the resulting wheat and wine standards. Expanding upon the Magna Carta in his “Tractatus de ponderibus et mensuris”, he decreed:
The London Quarter mentioned in the Magna Carta be fixed at a capacity of 8 struck (level) bushels. It declared that 8 tower pounds of wheat made the gallon of wine and that 8 gallons of wine made the London Bushel.
Gentlemen this bushel would weigh exactly 64 mercantile pounds of water and a simple calculation in metric units documented by Zupko yield a weight of 28 kilograms and a volume of 28 liters exactly or 28000 cubic cm. as an engineer i would expect this volume to be described as a cube of certain dimensions. the cube root of 28000 is 303.658 mm. this length is within 1/2 mm of the length of the Ancient Minoan foot. We then can consider the bushel to be one ancient cubic foot, the gallon to be a cube of half this size, and the quarter a cube twice this size. The pint would be a cube 1/4 this size. The old saying "a pint a pound the world round" would have been exact and true in the days of the Magna Carta.
Roland A. Boucher, Engineer Yale 55 11 deerspring Irvine Ca 92604 e-mail rolandfly@sbcglobal.net
Naturally, the content of this article should be focused on historical units; the imperial & US systems have their own articles. It is one thing to focus an article on this or that aspect of a subject; to conflate the article's focus with the definition of the subject is something else. The article is now claiming that with the introduction of the imperial system these units ceased being English. The imperial system simply refined the units; how did it remove the Englishness from them? Surely 1824 wasn't the first time the system was refined. Similarly, bringing the units to America (as with Australia, Canada, etc.) didn't cancel their Englishness. It was still the same set of units (they just happened to get refined a little differently), just as the Americans still speak English. JIMp talk· cont 00:24, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
The article starts with "English units are the historical units of measurement used in England up to 1824, which evolved as a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of units." The "up to 1824" clearly excludes the imperial system. The "in England" seems to exclude US units too. The rest of he article, however, implies otherwise. It's probably time for a bit of a tidy up. As for creating another article to properly cover the topic, how about Historic English units? The new Historic English units article would cover the pre-1824/pre-US period and this article would be the general page. In other words, split out all the details of the older systems into a new article leaving this to cover the general topic. I'm just not sure that we're at the stage yet where that would be necessary. JIMp talk· cont 07:23, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Chart showing the relationships of weight measures (in the Weight section) has several problems: 1) WP:OR, 2) "Source: made from scratch with Graphviz based on data from en:English unit" WP:CIRCULAR, and 3) it historically inaccurate.
The pennyweight is derived from the dirhem, not the grain. The Tower weight system used a different sort of grain (wheat grain) not related to the grain used today (barleycorn). Although the Troy and Apothecary systems seem to be related, it is not clear which came first. And finally, the avoirdupois pound came into general use in the early 1300s, but didn't acquire a grain unit until 1588.
For these reasons, I feel the diagram should be removed. Zyxwv99 ( talk) 14:06, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
The whole article needs a restructuring and reformatting!
To clarify the purpose of the article, English units refer to the measurement systems legally defined in the U.K. up until 1963, when Imperial units were defined.
Many of the measurements listed here are actually from the English apothecaries' system, which were not (always? ever?) defined by English or U.K. laws, so those need to be figured out and separated, while others are from the English avoirdupois system.
Also, instead of lists of measurements, all of these should be presented as tables, with appropriate columns for conversion to Imperial and Metric measurements, at least.
I am going to start revising the Volume section along the lines proposed here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PetesGuide ( talk • contribs) 19:44, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
The text shows the Roman Mile to be 1000 paces yet the chart calculates as 2000 paces. Perhaps paces and steps are transposed in the chart. 2A01:4B00:D307:ED00:C05B:2D80:5570:EF4F ( talk) 11:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
The article starts: "English units are the units of measurement used in England up to 1826 (when they were replaced by Imperial units),..." I think this is basically false. In 1826, nothing was replaced by anything; what happened was that the existing, continuing units were codified, clarified, standardised. I think this sort of claim is symptomatic of a very general WP problem. It is very good at dividing things up: you simply find two slightly different statements about something, but very poor at unifying things, and showing a grasp of the wider picture. (There is a very similar problem with claims that all the different varieties of Chinese character - things like 木 田 綺 原 - are somehow completely different objects, labelled with there name in the language of the place they are being used. Completely irrelevant to this particular instance, yet illustrative of a general problem.) Imaginatorium ( talk) 17:19, 13 February 2023 (UTC)