OK...it's' been bugging me all day and I'm too lazy to look it up.
I need to know: How many pounds are in a stone?
I keep hearing the british researcher down the hall exclaim about how her husband msut have put on a stone over the holidays. Like it's bad.
Now that word is bouncing about in my head (mostly as I have no idea what it means...*ahem*) and I must know...what stone? Was it once based on a stone? Was it a *shiny* stone? A valuable one at least?
Did it have teeth?
What?
Is it just a polite way of making a weight seem smaller than it is?
I imagine it's linked to what some King did once with a rock or weighed or threw at someone before he died...am I getting warmer?
At least try the METRIC people.
Come on. Kilos maybe?
A whiffin of a tonne?
Sheesh!
But, Seriously tho. Anyone?
I'm dead curious...
5 comments:
About 14 lbs per stone or just a bit more than an 1/18th of a Rimshot (sigh)
And to satisfy the scientificy part of you:
6.35029318 kilograms
so really, you can remove the 'about' from my earlier post.
14 lbs
That explains why I don't get some of your posts! You are young enough to have been brought up totally metric! Funny that the Stone as a measurement of weight didn't translate to North America, but the rest of the Imperial system did.
see? You're young! That means I am too :)
they tend to use stone and pounds - so say 10 stone 4 - the four is pounds. I don't know why they still use it though - but everybody does.
As far as I am aware (and a quickie google confirms) the origin is literal - a particular rock used for measuring stuff like potatoes, or whatever.
I think they use it because it keeps numbers smaller and it doesn't sounds as bad. Also the Brits are being dragged into (the century of the fruitbat) metrification kicking and screaming. Hence "save our pints" etc - a bedrock of anti-EU movements.
I'm on the cusp - I measure half in imperial and half in metric.
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