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I'm not British, but I do agree that the stone measurement does make sense in a human way. It's pretty easy to see how it came about. Oh take a rock about the

by axaxs 6y ago

I'm not British, but I do agree that the stone measurement does make sense in a human way. It's pretty easy to see how it came about. Oh take a rock about the size of x(whatever x was agreed upon at the time), and see how many that item weighs. In a time without precise machinery, or any machinery at all, you can see how such a system was thought up. Do you disagree with the above, or do you just think in the modern world it shouldn't exist anymore?

NalNezumi 6y ago
>. Oh take a rock about the size of x(whatever x was agreed upon at the time), and see how many that item weighs. I do not disagree with the above, I can totally see that being done (hell, when we didn't have a measure out while hiking with my friends we used "5 iPhones long" as a temporary measurement) Problem is of course, that I can't see how that measurement can ever scale well beyond one medieval towns market place as a measurement, let alone a country, kingdom or a territory without confusion. It is ambiguous. Just as the example you said, it is easy for a fraudster to pick up any rock and claim that one to resemble the standard rock unit and get some unfair trading advantage. It is too easy to trample with. The purpose of measurement is exactly to REMOVE ambiguity, and establish a STANDARDS just as we established common languages for communication. And on a side note, usage of the "stone measurement" was officially prohibited for commercial use in 1985 in UK. It is apparently still used for body-weight, but I guess there ambiguity can be preferred ;) Updating measurement unit according to societal needs is only natural, and the purpose of the Stone story in my comment was that, even among so many different national (with different culture, language, metric system) they thought the Stone measurement made no sense today. Except the Brit that had a mental model for it. Which was the point: sometime mental model can seem like an good argument, but as the Canadian and American also thought stone was dumb, (While everyone else in the room thought imperial units were dumb) they kind of proved that their argument for imperial units was also not found on good basis.

by axaxs 6y ago

NalNezumi 6y ago

>. Oh take a rock about the size of x(whatever x was agreed upon at the time), and see how many that item weighs. I do not disagree with the above, I can totally see that being done (hell, when we didn't have a measure out while hiking with my friends we used "5 iPhones long" as a temporary measurement) Problem is of course, that I can't see how that measurement can ever scale well beyond one medieval towns market place as a measurement, let alone a country, kingdom or a territory without confusion. It is ambiguous. Just as the example you said, it is easy for a fraudster to pick up any rock and claim that one to resemble the standard rock unit and get some unfair trading advantage. It is too easy to trample with. The purpose of measurement is exactly to REMOVE ambiguity, and establish a STANDARDS just as we established common languages for communication. And on a side note, usage of the "stone measurement" was officially prohibited for commercial use in 1985 in UK. It is apparently still used for body-weight, but I guess there ambiguity can be preferred ;) Updating measurement unit according to societal needs is only natural, and the purpose of the Stone story in my comment was that, even among so many different national (with different culture, language, metric system) they thought the Stone measurement made no sense today. Except the Brit that had a mental model for it. Which was the point: sometime mental model can seem like an good argument, but as the Canadian and American also thought stone was dumb, (While everyone else in the room thought imperial units were dumb) they kind of proved that their argument for imperial units was also not found on good basis.