English language question

[addyb]

Okay, random question: In ENGLISH english, (you know, that strange accent you guys in Blimey speak, not the North American slang I do) what is a stone, as in weight? I quote Spike Milligan in his novel "Adolf Hitler: My part in his downfall:"

""As far as the Irish were concerned, Sergeant Harris was sabotoging the British was effort, the way he cooked they weren't far out. Every evening, Harris could be seen leaving the billet, his Service Dress stuffed with tins of fruit, cream, and other wartime goodies that he laid at the feet of his mistress prior to coitus. When he first met her, she was a little six stone darling; when we left Bexhill two years later she weighed fourteen stone and owned a chain of grocery stores"

So what is this "stone" Spike speaks out, and how many pounds and/or kilograms equal a stone?

Cheers,

A.

 

[raskusdrotti]

Hey!

A stone is 14 pounds - so 14 stone is 196 pounds

Neil

 

[jim_w]

Good choice of reading material!

 

[Squidders]

Addyb: this may help

http://www.onlineconversion.com/

Joe

 

[tenbears10]

Great question addyb. I forget how many things the british do and use that the rest of the world have never heard of. Driving on the left of the road anyone?

like Jim says, you will learn a lot reading spike milligan. Might I suggest Peter Cook as well, I've hardly laughed so much as reading his scripts.

 

[arctic hobo]

Great question addyb. I forget how many things the british do and use that the rest of the world have never heard of. Driving on the left of the road anyone?

http://www.2pass.co.uk/goodluck.htm
No offence intended, but it's the USA that muck everything up. Standard units are newtons, metres, kilograms, etc, etc - these were agreed as a worldwide standard. Every country in the world uses them except the USA. I know we all use Imperial measurements but officially it's metric. What really makes it confusing is that US imperial is different to ours sometimes
Milligan is officially the funniest man in the world. So there. If you ever get the chance to read his version of the story of the Israelites, do, it's amazing

 

[dtalbot]

And of course it all gets very messy if one side is talking metres and the other side is talking feet. As NASA found out when they figured that the European specs on part of one of their Mars probes were in metric not feet just after it hit the floor going 3 times as fast as they expected!

 

[marcja]

addyb,

here you are mate, just for you

http://www.metric-conversions.org/weight-conversion.htm

Marc

 

[addyb]

Thanks for the help, guys. Spike Milligan is bloody hilarious. His wartime trilogy basically has nothing at all to do with the war, as he spent most of his time playing gigs and wreaking havoc.

You're right, the USA does "muck the language up." I live in Canada, so we go by kilometres, add a U to words like colour, and favourite. And we still pledge allegiance to "She that Must be Obeyed/The Old Ball and Chain"

hehehe

Cheers,

A.

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

Whats all this then? I KNEW what a stone equals and I live in the artificial nightlight of Lost Angeles. But then I'm an irish-american anglican who spent 3 formative years under an orangeman vicar school headmaster. A friend from Burnaby gave me a canadian coin in return for a gifted knife, honouring the old folk belief to keep it from cutting the friendship. I put it on the cement sidewalk and started carefully pushing it along. "Chris, what ARE you doing?" I began singing Pink Floyd " got to keep the Loonies on the path" as his wife Moira walked by shaking her head.

 

[Huon]

Hey CHris,

It is not to late to do something about that vicar. The church frowns on that sort of thing these days.

On the plus side, it doesn't seem to have done you any real harm....

 

[KIMBOKO]

Talking of interesting conversions which we weren't..................... at work I had to convert pounds per bushel(US) to kilograms per hectolitre.

I couldn't find a single conversion factor so I had to use both the lbs to kilo and bushels(US) to hectolitres.
1.2855053
Nick P

 

[MartiniDave]

If you like Spike's war trilogy, you might also get a laugh from his version of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" as you might imagine, Spike put a different spin on things!

Dave

 

[Pappa]

Some of you may have seen this already, but have you ever wondered what the speed of light in furlongs per fortnight is?

Pappa

 

[jamesdevine]

Thanks I actual do known someone that will be interested in that.

James

 

[Greywolf]

Thanks for that link.... Im just about to share it with others



Greywolf

 

[C_Claycomb]

You want real language problems, when we were in NY, the locals didn't know what a fortnight was, and a couple could be anything up to half a dozen

That Google thing is cool, it does lots of conversions, never knew about it

Having grown up in the US, now working in an engineering company that works with both the French and the Americans I have had to get my head around both systems. No doubt about it Imperial is better for everyday stuff, degF is way better for describing the weather than degC, and inches and feet are much faster than cm. I can visualise what someone 5'8" looks like....but 1727cm Just don't ask me to do engineering calculations in Imperial!

I own to feeling slightly patriotic about Imperial units I mean, the concpt was British, transported to the Americas, and preserved there when Britain bowed to European pressure and went French...sorry, Metric

 

[Pappa]

You want real language problems, when we were in NY, the locals didn't know what a fortnight was, and a couple could be anything up to half a dozen

I don't know if this is true, but I read that in South Africa, now doesn't mean now, but something like sometime between tomorrow and next week. Apparently, there's another form, now now, which means sometime in the next few hours.

Pappa

 

[Goose]

Builders and plumbers in the UK have the same problem........