[TR] Brit Money Definition

[KingsCreekTrees at aol.com]

A "Stone" is fourteen pounds. I think the only way it is used is to measure 
 one's own weight. At the doctor's office, one might be asked "how much do 
you  weigh?", to which you'd have to be ready to say something like "twelve 
stone  two", meaning twelve stones, two pounds, or 170 pounds. This is still 
the  exclusive system used today in the UK.
 
A hundredweight (abbreviated to cwt--always lower case for some reason), is 
 one hundred pounds. Why that one is so complicated when all the other UK  
measurements are so simple, I have no idea. The use of cwt has dwindled to  
virtually nothing now, mostly because weight (with the exception of the 
weight  of human beings) is metric, so as not to mix the two different systems. 
I guess  a hundredweight equaling a hundred pounds was too complicated.
 
Tim Dyer,  Proprietor
Kings Creek Trees and Ornamentals
427 Kings Creek Road,  RR3
Ashton, Ontario, K0A 1B0, Canada 
Phone/fax: 613 253 4126 Website: _www.kingscreektrees.com_ 
(http://www.kingscreektrees.com/) 

Proud  member of Landscape Ontario (the Ontario association of Horticulture 
Industry  professionals), the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association and 
Christmas Tree  Farmers of Ontario