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Fall (unit)
A fall or fa’ is a Scottish measurement of length. Other variants of the name include "faw", "faa" and "fa"; the spelling with an apologetic apostrophe is not favoured now. The measurement was mostly out of use by the 19th century, and English measurements were imposed in 1824 by an act of parliament. There were 320 falls in a Scots mile. Equivalent to: * Scottish measures: 18 ft, or 6 ells * Metric system: 5.6479 metres * Imperial system: 6.1766 yards The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.914 ..., 1.123 rods See also * Ell (Scots) * Scottish inch * Scots mile Obsolete Scottish units of measurement Units of length {{Standard-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apologetic Apostrophe
The 'apologetic'Graham W. (1977) The Scots Word Book, The Ramsay Head Press, Edinburgh, p.11 or parochial apostrophe is the distinctive use of apostrophes in Modern Scots orthography. Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant exists in the Standard English cognate, as in ' (all), ' (give) and ' (with). The practice, unknown in Older Scots, was introduced in the 18th century by writers such as Allan Ramsay (poet), Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns as part of a process of Anglicisation. The 18th-century practice was also adopted by later writers such as Walter Scott, John Galt (novelist), John Galt and Robert Louis Stevenson. It produced an easily understood spurious Scots that was very popular with English readers and on the English stage. It was also sometimes forced on reluctant authors by publishers desirous of a wider circulation for their books. The custom "also had the unfortunate effect of suggesting that Broad Scots was not a separate language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mile
The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English feet, or 1,760 yards. The statute mile was standardised between the British Commonwealth and the United States by an international agreement in 1959, when it was formally redefined with respect to SI units as exactly . With qualifiers, ''mile'' is also used to describe or translate a wide range of units derived from or roughly equivalent to the Roman mile, such as the nautical mile (now exactly), the Italian mile (roughly ), and the Chinese mile (now exactly). The Romans divided their mile into 5,000 Roman feet but the greater importance of furlongs in Elizabethan-era England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to or in 1593. This form of the mile then spread across the British Empire, some successor states of which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obsolete Scottish Units Of Measurement
Scottish or Scots units of measurement are the weights and measures peculiar to Scotland which were nominally replaced by English units in 1685 but continued to be used in unofficial contexts until at least the late 18th century. The system was based on the ell (length), stone (mass), and boll and firlot (volume). This official system coexisted with local variants, especially for the measurement of land area. The system is said to have been introduced by David I of Scotland (1124–53), although there are no surviving records until the 15th century when the system was already in normal use. Standard measures and weights were kept in each burgh, and these were periodically compared against one another at "assizes of measures", often during the early years of the reign of a new monarch. Nevertheless, there was considerable local variation in many of the units, and the units of dry measure steadily increased in size from 1400 to 1700... The Scots units of length were technical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metric System
The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the International System of Units (SI) in the mid-20th century, under the oversight of an international standards body. Adopting the metric system is known as ''metrication''. The historical evolution of metric systems has resulted in the recognition of several principles. Each of the fundamental dimensions of nature is expressed by a single base unit (measurement), base unit of measure. The definition of base units has increasingly been realisation (metrology), realised from natural principles, rather than by copies of physical artefacts. For quantities derived from the fundamental base units of the system, units SI derived unit, derived from the base units are used—e.g., the square metre is the derived unit for area, a qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial System
The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed through a series of Weights and Measures Acts and amendments. The imperial system developed from earlier English units as did the related but differing system of customary units of the United States. The imperial units replaced the Winchester Standards, which were in effect from 1588 to 1825. The system came into official use across the British Empire in 1826. By the late 20th century, most nations of the former empire had officially adopted the metric system as their main system of measurement, but imperial units are still used alongside metric units in the United Kingdom and in some other parts of the former empire, notably Canada. The modern UK legislation defining the imperial system of units is given in the Weights and Measures Act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yard (unit)
The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.9144 meter. A distance of 1,760 yards is equal to 1 mile. The US survey yard is very slightly longer. Name The term, ''yard'' derives from the Old English , etc., which was used for branches, staves and measuring rods. It is first attested in the late 7th century laws of Ine of Wessex, where the "yard of land" mentioned is the yardland, an old English unit of tax assessment equal to hide. Around the same time the Lindisfarne Gospels account of the messengers from John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew used it for a branch swayed by the wind. In addition to the yardland, Old and Middle English both used their forms of "yard" to denote the surveying lengths of or , used in computing acres, a distance now usually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rod (unit)
The rod, perch, or pole (sometimes also lug) is a surveyor's tool and unit of length of various historical definitions, often between approximately 3 and 8 meters (9 ft 10 in and 26 ft 2 in). In modern US customary units it is defined as US survey feet, equal to exactly of a surveyor's mile, or a quarter of a surveyor's chain ( yards), and is approximately 5.0292 meters. The rod is useful as a unit of length because whole number multiples of it can form one acre of square measure (area). The 'perfect acre' is a rectangular area of 43,560 square feet, bounded by sides 660 feet (a furlong) long and 66 feet wide (220 yards by 22 yards) or, equivalently, 40 rods and 4 rods. An acre is therefore 160 square rods or 10 square chains. The name ''perch'' derives from the Ancient Roman unit, the ''pertica''. The measure also has a relationship with the military pike of about the same size. Both measures date from the sixteenth century, when the pike was still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inch
Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth"), the word ''inch'' is also sometimes used to translate similar units in other measurement systems, usually understood as deriving from the width of the human thumb. Standards for the exact length of an inch have varied in the past, but since the adoption of the international yard during the 1950s and 1960s the inch has been based on the metric system and defined as exactly 25.4 mm. Name The English word "inch" ( ang, ynce) was an early borrowing from Latin ' ("one-twelfth; Roman inch; Roman ounce"). The vowel change from Latin to Old English (which became Modern English ) is known as umlaut. The consonant change from the Latin (spelled ''c'') to English is palatalisation. Both were features of Old English phonology; see and fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mile
The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English feet, or 1,760 yards. The statute mile was standardised between the British Commonwealth and the United States by an international agreement in 1959, when it was formally redefined with respect to SI units as exactly . With qualifiers, ''mile'' is also used to describe or translate a wide range of units derived from or roughly equivalent to the Roman mile, such as the nautical mile (now exactly), the Italian mile (roughly ), and the Chinese mile (now exactly). The Romans divided their mile into 5,000 Roman feet but the greater importance of furlongs in Elizabethan-era England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to or in 1593. This form of the mile then spread across the British Empire, some successor states of which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
