Quote:
Originally Posted by Hersbird
Isn't it the other way around? The real gallon is smaller. Some would say the Brits changed their gallon to be some kind of scientific calculation while the US kept the good old gallon based on the size of the queens bowel movements or some such thing.
Miles is also a silly distance, I personally still use leagues, the distance an effective cannon can be shot at ships approaching your coastline. Now there is a useful measurement. Not those candy assed Spanish cannons that shoot 2.63 miles but the good English ones lobing a one stone weight cannonball to 3 miles.
So it's leagues per bowel movement for me.
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For me, the best system is the one in which I can remember the most stats for comparison. Re: Gallons. Some sharpers in the Colonies declared that a Gallon was not 40 fluid ounces, but 32. The brits got shortchanged for a while before they caught on. However, the colonists measured their fluid in alcohol instead of water, which threw me off for most of my life, until I got a calculator for conversions. The lack of distinction between US and Imperial gallons is a huge problem in trying to understand written materials.