batter (or shooes, or the sun) "half a quarter high"

[Garson O'Toole]

Here is an instance of  "half an eighth high" that might be useful in
formulating a hypothesis.

Title: He That Eateth Bread With Me
Author: Hersilia A. Mitchell Keays
Publisher: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1904

But listen - I'll make you forget all about my being only five feet
one inch and half an eighth high.

http://books.google.com/books?id=fooOAAAAYAAJ&q=eighth#v=snippet&

The book "He That Eateth Bread With Me" was also serialized in the
newspaper Jersey Journal and the phrase above appeared on July 14,
1906 on page 8 (GenealogyBank page 10).


On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      batter (or shooes, or the sun) "half a quarter high"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have a letter written around 1842 that contains the following:
>
> "One day in every week was devoted to the making of cake and pastry
> and I have been assured that the batter was half a quarter high as
> light as a feather and as white as snow."
>
> Googling tells me that Sarah Orne Jewett wrote "and preferred an
> Indian pudding to pie crust that was, without exaggeration, half a
> quarter high."
>
> A book on Texas court cases has "The sun was about half a quarter
> high when the defendant left the witness."
>
> "On either side of the seams at the bottom of the cap one sees the
> black and white stripes attached to and at the sides of the black
> neck-pieces; and the border round the bottom of the cap, which is
> just under half a quarter high,"  From a Swedish (?) journal, 1953.
>
> I also find "The Womens shooes are half a quarter high at the heel,
> set on with little nails, in so much that they can hardly go in
> them."  This is in "The voyages and travells of the ambassadors sent
> by Frederick Duke of Holstein ...", by Adam Olearius (1669).
>
> So this can't be a literal reference to the size of a U.S. quarter.
>
> What does "half a quarter high" mean?  A reference to an eighth of
> some unspecified unit?  (But for both the sun and pies/shoes?)  Or
> something metaphorical?
>
> Joel
>
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