[meteorite-list] avoirdupois ?

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:35 2004
Message-ID: <3EE42389.27E6A660_at_bhil.com>

Hi, Tom aka James,

    "Avoirdupois" is the fancy French term for common British measures (like
pounds and ounces and gallons and miles and inches, and also less common ones
like ells and tuns and drams and rods and chains) which are called common
British measures except for the fact that the common British don't use them
either or at least they're not supposed to (an English butcher was arrested for
selling meat by the pound) as opposed the metric system which all science of
whatever kind including meteoritics uses and has used for the last fifty years
or so as well as all of the rest of the world uses for everything except when
they go into a MacDonald's and don't ask for 5/44ths kilo'er with cheese just
like nobody buys a 1/28 ounce micro of their favorite meteorite, so, yes, "we"
meaning the USA use "Avoirdupois" in everyday life but not in science, although
it is true that Richard Nixon planned to convert the entire USA officially and
universally to the metric system, the remains of which intention still survive
in the two-liter bottle of soda and the bureaucratic insistance in labelling
all food packages in grams but not much else, but it never happened because
Nixon failed to measure up in either system.

    Hey, I sure hope that explains everything...


Sterling K. Webb
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom aka James Knudson wrote:

> Hello List, This is meteorite related, it may not seem to be, but take it
> from me it is! I am so confused, do we use Avoirdupois or what? I was doing
> a conversion and was given a few choices and do not know for sure? Can some
> one explain this to me?
> Thanks, Tom
> The proudest member of the IMCA 6168
>
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Received on Mon 09 Jun 2003 02:04:59 AM PDT