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Measuring Up
Ever wondered why we abbreviate pound and ounce as
"lb" and "oz" when there's no L, B, or Z
in the words? The Latin word for pound, libra, gave us our
abbreviation "lb." The Italian ounce was called an
'onzia', leaving us with 'oz'. 'Tun' was the early
Anglo-Saxon word for tub or vat, giving us our ton. The
Anglo-Saxon word for a man's waist measurement or girth was
'gyrd', which became our yard. The Romans decreed the width
of the thumb was one inch, and that 12 thumbs equaled one
foot-length. The Latin word 'uncia' meaning one-twelfth, was
shortened to 'unch' and gave us our inch. An early English
system for measuring grains used the 'measure-full'. Eight
measures equaled a peck, and 16 pecks equalled a 'hlot.'
Eventually the 'hlot' became 'a lot', so when you say you
have 'a lot' of something, you're talking about 16 pecks!
The Romans noted that a 2-step pace of a marching man was
about five feet. A thousand paces, or 5,000 feet, became
their mile, which they called 'milia passuum' meaning 1,000
paces. However, farms in England were measured in
furrow-longs, or furlongs, which equaled 660 feet. In 1575
Elizabeth I proclaimed that the mile should henceforth be
5,280 feet, so that it could easily be divided into eight
furlongs.
The Bad Guys
- In A.D. 406, a German tribe marched across Europe to
Africa. They preyed on ships in the Mediterranean Sea
and persecuted the African Christians. They plundered
Sicily and ravaged Italy. They were warriors who
accepted brutality as a way of life. They left us no
statues or monuments, but they left something more
enduring- their name: The Vandals.
- A man named Muldoon led a gang of street thugs that
kept the entire waterfront area of San Francisco under
their tight control in the 1870s. A newspaper wanted to
end their tyranny but was so intimidated by the gang
that they dared not use Muldoon's real name. They
spelled it backwards and changed the N to an H- and
hoodlum entered the language.
- Kali Ma was the Hindu goddess of destruction, and the
caste of professional murderers who worshipped her were
called Thugs. Today a thug is anyone you would rather
not meet in a dark alley.
- In the 17th and 18th centuries a number of pirates and
freeloaders settled on the island of Santo Domingo in
the Caribbean Sea, where they smoked meat and sold it to
other pirates in exchange for booty. The Carib Indian
verb for smoked meat was 'boucan'. Thus, pirates became
known as buccaneers. The word pirate comes from the
Greek 'peiran' meaning 'to attack'.
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Other columns included in the weekly
feature - Time Out For Trivia
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