I encountered this graphic on Quora, where the person was ranting about how awful all measurement systems are other than metric, and of course I thought whatever, for crying out loud, it’s not that hard to learn multiple measurement systems and just remember that one inch equals 2.54 centimeters or whatever else you might actually use. Which, for me, is tablespoons and teaspoons to ccs, because of course when tube-feeding puppies, you convert ridiculous units like tablespoons to ccs, because it’s not like you’re going to be feeding a neonatal puppy out of a SPOON, they ought to just give the units in ccs to start with.
But my point is, this is a great graphic! Take a look —
Okay, did anybody actually know about the span — ell — skein — spindle thing? I didn’t know a “spindle” could be a unit of measurement! And so big — more than a mile? And I’ve never heard of a “shackle” as a unit of measurement.
Okay, here is a website where you can convert from one weird unit to another or to a normal unit. A spindle is more than eight miles! That’s so neat. But we can make it much neater. Look at what else the linked website shows us:
spindle = .29730444 arpentcan,
spindle = 20,736,000 bottom measure
spindle = 60 cable length
Spindle = 654.55 chain (surveyors chain)
And a whole bunch more.
AND, this reminds me of someone else on Quora asking something like, How can I give distance measurements in my fantasy novel? Well, here you go, these are the exact tools you need to come up with great ideas for measurement in fantasy novels.
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My local handspinner (the Teen) said oh, yeah, spindle, we’d call it yards on spindle these days. And ell, and skein I know. Tolkien used ell, for rope, which I think is where I first cared what it meant. span, I think I may have seen in hand spinning references, but not used elsewhere. All fiber arts terms. With a yardage that large, that’s got to be industrial size.
Shackle for a measure, though? That one I haven’t.
I’m sure you all have seen that SNL skit on weights and measures? If not, you should look it up on YouTube. It’s from last season, and was probably the best skit in years.
So a twip is 1440th of an inch? (6x12x20). Honestly, I just like the sound of it. Twip. Twip. Twip!!!
I’m not quite sure how the metric measurements going down the side relate. Take ell, grade, fathom, perch and rope (listed going from highest to lowest physical position) – all of them are in the metres field, but there’s 1.143m to an ell, 0.944m to a grade, 1.8288m to a fathom, 5.0292m to a perch, and 3.7783m to a rope. If the metric down the side meant something, surely the figures would be climbing (more metres to a fathom than to a grade, more metres to a perch than a fathom) rather than “decrease from ell to grade, increase from grade to fathom, increase from fathom to perch, decrease from perch to rope”.
… I think I may be getting a little too invested in this.
Heather, I too was puzzled by exactly how to read the metric axis. However, I just said, “Huh,” and quit worrying about it.
I agree that “twip” is a wonderful measurement. Alas, I doubt I’ll ever be able to visualize 1440th of an inch.
Nope, I haven’t watched SNL … ever, maybe, but certainly not for years and years. But I’ll look up that episode!