thy thigh etc.

[Larry Trask]

--On Tuesday, June 5, 2001 8:30 pm +0100 petegray <petegray at btinternet.com>
wrote:

>>>    kintal           100 lbs, 100 kg, 112 lbs. (an interesting weight!)

This is the British hundredweight.  As I recall, there are scraps of
evidence showing that Germanic 'hundred' could mean anything from '100' to
'120'.  The hundredweight has shown considerable regional variation in
value, with the US finally settling on 100 pounds, but the UK on 112
pounds.

When I first came to Britain in 1970, I was a teacher of physics and
chemistry, and British science education in those days still used Imperial
units.  Every time I did a physics problem involving hundredweights, I got
the wrong answer -- until I finally discovered that the local hundredweight
was 112 pounds.  That was a shock, I can tell you.  The British ton, being
twenty hundredweight, is of course 2240 pounds.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)