A "fifty-six"?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/3/2008 11:09 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>"[A] fifty-six [is a] weight of 4 stone."
>
>Damn, Joel! I'm impressed! That would never have occurred to me! {No,
>I'm not being sarcastic. I *am* impressed. I would have totally missed
>that connection.]
>
>-Wilson

I assume you didn't miss the pun on "fundamental", however!  Or the
one on "weighty": heavy in pounds, both of mass and of wealth (which
was of course equated to importance).

Joel


>On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:50 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> >  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >  Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >  Subject:      A "fifty-six"?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >  In _The House of the Seven Gables_, I find:
> >
> >  "Though looked upon as a weighty man among his contemporaries, in
> >  respect of animal substance; and as favored with a remarkable degree
> >  of fundamental development, well adapting him for the judicial bench,
> >  we conceive that the modern Judge Pyncheon, if weighed in the same
> >  balance with his ancestor, would have required at least an
> >  old-fashioned fifty-six, to keep the scale in equilibrio."
> >
> >  [And they say Hawthorne was humorless.]
> >
> >  What is a fifty-six?  Not in OED2.  A weight of 4 stone, I
> >  assume--but was this a common unit for weights used in a scale,
> >  perhaps for animals?
> >
> >  Joel
> >
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