| Author |
Message |
Ray Heindl
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:46 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
Tony Cooper <tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 11:23:24 GMT, Jim Lawton wrote:
On 8 Nov 2005 02:55:16 -0800, "Nate Branscom" wrote:
Three quarters or three fourths.
But really three quarters is the normal way.
I wouldn't say "three quarters" is the normal way in the US. I
think either version is common.
|
The Google ratio for "three quarters of":"three fourths of" is 6:1, for
what it's worth. Both sound equally normal to my USan ears; I didn't
expect such a high ratio.
--
Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply)
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Ray Heindl
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:47 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
D.C.Wood@ukc.ac.uk (dcw) wrote:
| Quote: | David Taylor <davidt-news@yadt.co.uk> wrote:
reiro <reir@no.email.com> wrote
72/2 - can I read it as seventy-two second? or just as
thirty-six?
72 halves... perhaps... but I would never say that. Either 72
over 2, or 36.
Agreed. But "three halves" for "3/2" is just about possible.
|
"Three halves" sounds fine to me, though most people would probably
understand "one and a half" more readily.
In a former life I often needed to use a 1-1/8 inch wrench. I usually
referred to it as a "nine eighths" wrench, which confused most people.
Occasionally a "seventeen sixteenths" wrench was also required.
--
Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ray Heindl
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:53 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
"Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwlawler@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Sorry, I slipped there. Are small bottles of spirits "fifths"
rather than "fourths"? Is that "fifth of a gallon" or "fifth of a
pint"? To me, a "fourth/quarter of a gallon" seems likely but a
"fifth of a gallon" seems odd. A UK gallon is 8 pints. Why do
think a quart has its name? To us it is a quarter of a gallon.
How many pints in your gallon? Ditto pint can have a quarter here
but not a fifth since for us it is 16 fluid ounces. This may
explain my mistake.
|
Hard liquor used to be sold by the "fifth" (1/5 gallon), but now it's
750 ml, which is only 0.198 gallons. There's also a smaller, flattish,
sort-of-pocket-sized bottle that I've always thought of as a pint, but
I don't know what size it really is.
Were liquid measures developed in anticipation of the binary computer
age? Starting with 1 tablespoon,
x 2 = 1 ounce
x 2^2 = 1 gill
x 2 = 1 cup
x 2 = 1 pint
x 2 = 1 quart
x 2^2 = 1 gallon
So in binary, 1 gallon = 100000000 tablespoons.
--
Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply)
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 5:18 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
larrysulky@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: | Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 08 Nov 2005, Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote
re: consumer measurements in Britain
Today, petrol (gasoline), spirits, wine, fruit juice are in
litres but beer and milk are still in pints.
*Some* milk is still in pints: I've quite certain I've seen both
pints and 500ml containers of milk.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van
OK, I'll update that to "beer and milk are still commonly measured in
pints". Actually, it is draft beer that still in pints. Bottled and
canned beer is usually metric with 330ml being popular for some reason.
250ml and 500ml are also used. I don't recall seeing milk in metric
sizes but I won't deny that it exists. Could it have been some
non-standard type of milk such as UHT, chocolate, banana or soya?
This is why I moved to Canada. 12 years ago. I couldn't take it
anymore.
Now I buy lunchmeat by the gram, gasoline by the litre, and topsoil by
the cubic metre. I drive 100 kph on the highway to reach my destination
100 klicks away in 1 hour. Standard human body temperature is exactly
37 degrees.
I can sleep at night now. ;-
---larry
|
We have been taking a ridiculously long time to go metric. It started
when I was at secondary (high) school. Inside school, everything was
metric. In the world outside, imperial measures still ruled.
Gradually over the years things have been going metric but one thing at
a time. Petrol has been in litres for some time but distances and
speeds on the road are still in miles. I have mentioned drinks above.
Another example, standard measures in pubs are: 1/2 pint for beer,
125ml for wine, 25ml for spirits (or multiples thereof). Temperature
is a mess. Most weather reports are now Celsius only maybe with a
casual comment in Fahrenheit. Many people still don't understand
Celsius and cannot say if 25 is hot or not (it is here). On the other
hand, I have a digital thermometer which reads only in Fahrenheit
(presumably intended for the American market) I dictated the reading to
a nurse once and she did not know whether my son had a fever or not. I
don't like Fahrenheit but I remember 98.4. I had to convert the
temperature for her, luckily I know how.
I think that Australia started after us but they certainly completed
long before us. They appear to have been completely metric for a long
time. Can any Australians out there tell us when the transition
occurred and how long it took?
How about Canada? When did it change and how long did the change take?
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 5:29 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
Mike Lyle wrote:
| Quote: | Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
[...]
Sorry, I slipped there. Are small bottles of spirits "fifths"
rather
than "fourths"? Is that "fifth of a gallon" or "fifth of a pint"?
To me, a "fourth/quarter of a gallon" seems likely but a "fifth of
a
gallon" seems odd. A UK gallon is 8 pints. Why do think a quart
has
its name? To us it is a quarter of a gallon. How many pints in
your
gallon? Ditto pint can have a quarter here but not a fifth since
for
us it is 16 fluid ounces. This may explain my mistake.
Just a sec, I am no longer sure whether our pint is 16 fluid ounces
and
yours is 20 or vice versa. The only thing that I am sure of is
that
they are not the same. [...]
"The world around,
A pint's a pound" -- not!
"A pint of water
Weighs a pound and a quarter" -- sometimes.
Imperial pint is 20 floz, US 16. The fluid ounces are the same. The
origin of the US "fifth" is that it's the nearest memorable fraction
to the old-established standard wine-bottle of, I think, 76 cl. I
haven't looked closely, but I think the Euro-Antipond bottle is now a
stingy 70 cl.
--
Mike.
|
Oddly, even the fluid ounces are not the same.
Clearly my memory of imperial measures is fading so I had to check
this. According to Google's calculator:
1 US fluid ounces = 0.0295735297 litres
1 Imperial fluid ounces = 0.0284130742 litres
A number of other sites confirm this (but not to the high precision of
Google).
I forget why we disagree when we both think that it is the volume of
one ounce of water. Maybe we measured the water at different
temperatures.
So fluid ounce is slightly different on the two sides. Pint and gallon
are considerably different. Remember this if you are in the UK and
boast that you can drink a gallon of beer. It will be a bigger gallon
than you are used to.
A standard wine bottle is 750ml (I just went to look at some). That is
6 standard pub glasses of 125ml. This changed so long ago that I
cannot remember the earlier standard size. Maybe it was never used
here since most wine has always come from the continent. The most
popular non-European source is Australia which has been metric for a
long time.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mike Barnes
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 5:35 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
In alt.usage.english, Mike Lyle wrote:
| Quote: | Imperial pint is 20 floz, US 16. The fluid ounces are the same. The
origin of the US "fifth" is that it's the nearest memorable fraction
to the old-established standard wine-bottle of, I think, 76 cl. I
haven't looked closely, but I think the Euro-Antipond bottle is now a
stingy 70 cl.
|
The standard European wine bottle is still 75 cl. The 70 cl bottle is
quite rare, and AFAIK principally used for rock-bottom-price wines, so
as to make inroads into the rock.
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mike Lyle
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 6:06 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
| Quote: | Mike Lyle wrote:
[...]
to the old-established standard wine-bottle of, I think, 76 cl. I
haven't looked closely, but I think the Euro-Antipond bottle is
now a
stingy 70 cl.
--
Mike.
Oddly, even the fluid ounces are not the same.
Clearly my memory of imperial measures is fading so I had to check
this. According to Google's calculator:
1 US fluid ounces = 0.0295735297 litres
1 Imperial fluid ounces = 0.0284130742 litres
A number of other sites confirm this (but not to the high precision
of
Google).
I forget why we disagree when we both think that it is the volume
of
one ounce of water. Maybe we measured the water at different
temperatures.
So fluid ounce is slightly different on the two sides. Pint and
gallon are considerably different. Remember this if you are in the
UK and boast that you can drink a gallon of beer. It will be a
bigger gallon than you are used to.
A standard wine bottle is 750ml (I just went to look at some).
That
is 6 standard pub glasses of 125ml. This changed so long ago that
I
cannot remember the earlier standard size. Maybe it was never used
here since most wine has always come from the continent. The most
popular non-European source is Australia which has been metric for
a
long time.
|
I think, as I said, that there was a standard size for a wine-bottle
from way back. I remember now that the 70 cl size is for whisky: no
idea why.
--
Mike. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thirty-seven
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:12 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
| Quote: | Watch out since our
gallon has a different size: 4.54 litres, I think that yours is 3.8. I
hope that we agree on the size of a litre. None of gallon, pint, nor
fluid ounce is the same size on the two sides of the Atlantic.
|
Not true: To the extent that it still uses them, Canada uses Imperial
gallons, pints, fl. ounces, etc. (The U.S. not being the only country
on this side of the Atlantic.)
| Quote: | --
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
|
Don. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Blue Hornet
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:12 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
nancy13g wrote:
| Quote: | Jeffrey Turner wrote:
I've seen liquor sold in fifths but never fourths. But I
haven't been in a packie in a while. Pop is sold in two-liter
bottles, most everything else in British units.
Jeff, I asked you in another thread whether you're from New England or
not (based on your use of "quarter of" to tell time). I thought I'd
found the answer to that question here in this thread, since your use
of the word "packie" to mean a liquor store is an almost definite
marker of New England-ism.
Then you went and mixed me up again by referring to the carbonated
stuff people drink as "pop". Are you *sure* you didn't mean to say
"tonic"? Or are you maybe just a transplant to New England from
somewhere else?
I'm wicked confused ...
|
Maybe a New Englander who just spent more time in the Midwest than I
did. I was only there ten years, and would NEVER call soda "pop". Now
that I'm back in New England I might slip and call it soder, though.
If I'm very tired and thirsty. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:12 am
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
| Quote: |
We have been taking a ridiculously long time to go metric. It started
when I was at secondary (high) school. Inside school, everything was
metric. In the world outside, imperial measures still ruled.
Gradually over the years things have been going metric but one thing at
a time. Petrol has been in litres for some time but distances and
speeds on the road are still in miles. I have mentioned drinks above.
Another example, standard measures in pubs are: 1/2 pint for beer,
125ml for wine, 25ml for spirits (or multiples thereof). Temperature
is a mess. Most weather reports are now Celsius only maybe with a
casual comment in Fahrenheit. Many people still don't understand
Celsius and cannot say if 25 is hot or not (it is here). On the other
hand, I have a digital thermometer which reads only in Fahrenheit
(presumably intended for the American market) I dictated the reading to
a nurse once and she did not know whether my son had a fever or not. I
don't like Fahrenheit but I remember 98.4. I had to convert the
temperature for her, luckily I know how.
I think that Australia started after us but they certainly completed
long before us. They appear to have been completely metric for a long
time. Can any Australians out there tell us when the transition
occurred and how long it took?
How about Canada? When did it change and how long did the change take?
|
I didn't live in Canada when the change began, but I remember buying
gasoline by the imperial gallon in Vancouver in 1979. The youngsters
that I work with tell me that things started going metric vigourously
in the 80s, and it was thoroughly entrenched by 1994, when I moved
here. Mark Brader could probably give us more specifics.
Young urban English-speaking Canadians sound a whole lot like
Americans, so it catches many Americans off guard when these Canucks,
while visiting the States, really have no idea how long a mile is, or
whether 50 degrees Fahrenheit is warm or cold. It's as though they
hadn't learned the alphabet, or the names of the primary colours. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:38 pm
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
On 08 Nov 2005, Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote
| Quote: | Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 08 Nov 2005, Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote
re: consumer measurements in Britain
Today, petrol (gasoline), spirits, wine, fruit juice are in
litres but beer and milk are still in pints.
*Some* milk is still in pints: I've quite certain I've seen
both pints and 500ml containers of milk.
|
| Quote: | OK, I'll update that to "beer and milk are still commonly
measured in pints". Actually, it is draft beer that still in
pints. Bottled and canned beer is usually metric with 330ml
being popular for some reason. 250ml and 500ml are also used.
I don't recall seeing milk in metric sizes but I won't deny
that it exists. Could it have been some non-standard type of
milk such as UHT, chocolate, banana or soya?
|
Nope; just normal semi-skimmed. I seem to recall that the
supermarkets were doing 500ml, but the corner shops were still
selling pints.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian (30 years) and British (23 years)
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Charles Riggs
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:59 pm
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
On 8 Nov 2005 12:40:37 -0800, R H Draney <dadoctah@spamcop.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Bigger numbers are smaller wires for much the same reasons that shrimp are sized
the same way...an important characteristic of either is how many of them you can
cram into a given space....
|
Why is it that when one is served a shrimp cocktail with shrimp of
respectable size, not those nasty little salty fellows one often
receives in Europe, there are always six of them around the rim of the
dish? There appears to be a rule good on both sides of the Atlantic
regarding this.
I had an excellent one yesterday for lunch followed by roast pheasant,
which I found unappealing. An experiment only, since I'd never tried
the dish before. The man apologized for not having duck available at
that hour, something I know I like.
--
Charles Riggs |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Charles Riggs
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:59 pm
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
On Tue, 8 Nov 2005 21:13:28 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
<mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
[...]
Sorry, I slipped there. Are small bottles of spirits "fifths"
rather
than "fourths"? Is that "fifth of a gallon" or "fifth of a pint"?
To me, a "fourth/quarter of a gallon" seems likely but a "fifth of
a
gallon" seems odd. A UK gallon is 8 pints. Why do think a quart
has
its name? To us it is a quarter of a gallon. How many pints in
your
gallon? Ditto pint can have a quarter here but not a fifth since
for
us it is 16 fluid ounces. This may explain my mistake.
Just a sec, I am no longer sure whether our pint is 16 fluid ounces
and
yours is 20 or vice versa. The only thing that I am sure of is
that
they are not the same. [...]
"The world around,
A pint's a pound" -- not!
"A pint of water
Weighs a pound and a quarter" -- sometimes.
Imperial pint is 20 floz, US 16. The fluid ounces are the same.
|
A pint is 16 ounces. The British fluid ounce is larger than the US
one, which is why a pint of beer in America is smaller than a pint of
beer over here.
| Quote: | The
origin of the US "fifth" is that it's the nearest memorable fraction
to the old-established standard wine-bottle of, I think, 76 cl. I
haven't looked closely, but I think the Euro-Antipond bottle is now a
stingy 70 cl.
|
Huh? I thought a fifth has always been a fifth of a US gallon. These
new, frigging metric units have nothing to do with it.
--
Charles Riggs |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Charles Riggs
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:59 pm
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 17:41:29 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
<harvey.news@ntlworld.com> wrote:
| Quote: | On 08 Nov 2005, Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote
re: consumer measurements in Britain
Today, petrol (gasoline), spirits, wine, fruit juice are in
litres but beer and milk are still in pints.
|
Beer is available in many Irish pubs in glasses of three sizes: the
traditional pint glass, a "glass" (whatever size that is, but it's a
good deal smaller than the other two), or a 0.5 litre glass, about 10
per cent smaller than a pint.
| Quote: | *Some* milk is still in pints: I've quite certain I've seen both
pints and 500ml containers of milk.
|
Me too.
--
Charles Riggs |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Guest
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:09 pm
Post subject: Re: reading fractions |
|
|
thirty-seven wrote:
| Quote: | Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
Watch out since our
gallon has a different size: 4.54 litres, I think that yours is 3.8. I
hope that we agree on the size of a litre. None of gallon, pint, nor
fluid ounce is the same size on the two sides of the Atlantic.
Not true: To the extent that it still uses them, Canada uses Imperial
gallons, pints, fl. ounces, etc. (The U.S. not being the only country
on this side of the Atlantic.)
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Don.
|
Sorry, you must get tired of people making that mistake.
--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| |
FAQ
Memberlist
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in