TAC,
Thanks for replying. Yes, I was just reading your post on the reality of Imperial over Metric in Blighty. I've been to the UK twice and, overall, noticed the same; de jure acceptance of metric as standard, de facto retention of the Imperial measurements system in the lived-in-day-to-day. I'd forgotten, though, that a "stone" was fourteen lbs - there are those equally proprietary elements of the English system that never made the transfer to North America - or perhaps did but died out from the popular lexicography in the New World - and "stone" was apparently one of them. I could be wrong on "stone" I just have never seen or heard it used here at all.
Until the metric system on the continent - basically until the arrival on the scene of that certain "French" First Consul from Corsica and his, briefly, pan-European leveling and standardization regime - everyone seems to have had their own "pace." The Dutch I know even had two - one for Metropolitan Holland and the other for the East Indies. This last is likely because those Ambonese and Javanese had a shorter stride than native Dutchmen back in Europe. The Austria-Hungarians had "schritt" (though I don't know the Magyar equivalent for it servicing the other "half" of the "Dual Monarchy"), the Russians had "arshini," though they also a "fyt" (the "y" is a "u" in Cyrillic). Strangely, on their screw threads, both Imperial Russia and the early USSR used Whitworth threads. Japan - further afield but later eager users of the metric system after 1868 - had their "shaku" which come to just shy of the English foot along with many other units of linear measurement. Interestingly, screw threads on military items including sniper scopes, and I guess still today on cars and some motorcycles, are of the "Japan Engineering (or "Industrial" if you're talking post-war) Standard" or "JIS" system.
Best,
Gunnar
