> Thus ends today's lesson in weights and measures.... is it time for
> recess yet???
>
> Jon Arzt
> Omaha, NE USA
Well, the other responses prompted me to pull this out from a note I sent
to my colleagues proposing a new engineering unit:
the Buttload
>From The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (my 2-volume
dead-tree version with the rectangular magnifier):
Butt:
A cask for wine or ale, of capacity varying from 108 to 140 gallons.
Afterwards also as a measure of capacity = 2 hogsheads, i.e., in ale
measure of 108 gallons, in wine measures 126 gallons.
>From http://cartalk.cars.com/Mail/Letters/1999/11.26/5.html
See Webster's dictionary:
"butt--a measure of liquid capacity equal to 126 gallons or two
hogsheads"
In another dictionary:
an English butt is 2 hogshead of 54 imperial gallons each or ~129.7
U.S. gallons (i.e., a U.K. butt is apparently slightly bigger than a
U.S. one)
a Spanish butt is based on a wine cask and is equivalent to 140 U.S.
gallons or ~116.6 U.K. gallons (i.e., a Spanish butt is bigger still)
So next time someone says they have a "buttload" of stuff, just
remember, that is about two 55-gallon barrels' worth of stuff.
1 butt equals:
2 hogsheads (this is probably the easiest to remember for social
occasions)
476.961 liters
126 gallons
104.917 U.K. gallons
13.5347 bushels
0.131592 cords
11.6574 firkins
4032 gills
21504 ponys
4032 noggins
1008 pints
96768 teaspoons
12.0308 ephahs
1.58987x10^7 drops
10752 jiggers
16128 shots
629.504 wine bottles
630 fifths
One microbutt = 0.0968 teaspoons
>From http://home.earthlink.net/~terrafied/work/mbload.html
metric buttload (n.),
1. 2.4710439 English buttlodes.
2. the capacity of the platinum-iridium International Standard butt,
which is housed in Sevres, France, along with the platinum-iridium
kilogram and the old bar with the scratches that used to be the
standard meter.
And a *load convertor:
http://www.vgg.com/pt/pt_111600_calculator.html
--
= J e r o m e Y u z y k | jerome@supernet.ab.ca
= Sunbeam Alpine Series II #9118636 | www.bss.ab.ca/sunbeam
|