cubic gallons

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 15:34:25 -0400, Michael McKernan
<mckernan at LOCALNET.COM> wrote:

>Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>>FWIW, back in the '70's, there was a company that sold liquid
>>hand-cleaner in containers whose content it referred to as "four
>>liters - one metric gallon." I thought that was pretty cool.
>>Unfortunately, Weights & Measures did not agree and the company had to
>>simplify the statement of content to the far more prosaic "four
>>liters." My feeling is that, if there can be metric tons, why not also
>>metric gallons? For the average Joe Blow working a job that requires
>>the use of a special hand-cleaner, "one metric gallon" probably makes
>>more sin... uh, sense than "four liters."
>
>A 'metric gallon' consisting of four liters (to approximate the English
>gallon), would be a departure from the basic ideology of the metric
>system, which AFAIK, is firmly committed to the 'decimal' system.  Thus,
>it already has a volume measure, the 'deciliter', (1/10 of a liter).
>Apparently not in common use, the next-larger-than-liter metric unit
>would be a'dekaliter' (or'decaliter'?), equal to 10 liters.

Yeah, but there's already been a nondecimal precedent established by the
"metric mile" (= 1500 meters, or would that be a sesquikilometer?).


--Ben Zimmer