Why do Brits still use stone as a measurement?
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Because it's cool.
Also, well ... the reason is quite obvious, really. They weigh things in stones because they want to know who's a witch.
You get on the scale, they put a lot of stones on the other side, and then you get tossed into the river to see if you sink like a stone and hence are a decent trustworthy sort (who doesn't put funny things in your cooking pot like eye of newt or, well, anything but salt), or if you float, in which case you're a witch.
Then they pass the information on to either the Spanish Inquisition or Hogwarts. Depending on the weather and the mood of the clerk. And there you have your answer.
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Not sure.
We measure our height in feet and inches too.
I don't say 'I'm 180 lbs' nor do I say 'I'm 79 inches tall'. I'm 12st 12lb and 5'9".
Interestingly, under normal circumstances, I could tell you my weight in kilos quicker than I could in lbs as I'm weighed in metric at the gym.0 -
ViolaLeeBlueberry wrote: »Because it's cool.
Also, well ... the reason is quite obvious, really. They weigh things in stones because they want to know who's a witch.
You get on the scale, they put a lot of stones on the other side, and then you get tossed into the river to see if you sink like a stone and hence are a decent trustworthy sort (who doesn't put funny things in your cooking pot like eye of newt or, well, anything but salt), or if you float, in which case you're a witch.
Then they pass the information on to either the Spanish Inquisition or Hogwarts. Depending on the weather and the mood of the clerk. And there you have your answer.
This is my favourite answer so far!
(we also add random extra vowels into words, but that's so we can win at Scrabble - look up the Eddie Izzard sketch)0 -
Does a "fortnight" bother you too? lol0
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I think the point was that "stones" just aren't granular enough to be effective when dealing with typical human weights.
And if you're going to use "pounds" as a remainder (e.g. 3 stone 7 pounds), that's even more silly. Just dispense with stones entirely, in that case. Economy of language.
I'm a big fan of the metric system, and love its uniformity, but, for the life of me, can't understand why a kg is less granular than a pound.0 -
LiminalAscendance wrote: »I think the point was that "stones" just aren't granular enough to be effective when dealing with typical human weights.
And if you're going to use "pounds" as a remainder (e.g. 3 stone 7 pounds), that's even more silly. Just dispense with stones entirely, in that case. Economy of language.
I'm a big fan of the metric system, and love its uniformity, but, for the life of me, can't understand why a kg is less granular than a pound.
No
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Come back when you stop using "cups" as an official unit of measurement 0
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before MFP i had no idea what a stone was, remember a while ago having my self to Google it , + where i'm from we use KM and not miles (that was a bit confusing my first time in the US) and we use inches not CM and Lbs not Kg , it's all about custom i suppose
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Boy, defensive much? My question pertains to the fact that a stone is a HUGE unit of measure for the human body given the 14 lbs is like three months of healthy weight loss. Sure, America's insistence on using old English weights and measures is stupid, but using stones to measure weight loss is as silly as using grams.0
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Espressocycle wrote: »Boy, defensive much? My question pertains to the fact that a stone is a HUGE unit of measure for the human body given the 14 lbs is like three months of healthy weight loss. Sure, America's insistence on using old English weights and measures is stupid, but using stones to measure weight loss is as silly as using grams.
But it is similar to using feet and inches.
For weight loss issues we subdivide it into pounds.
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Why not use the metric system once and for all?
1 kilometer = 1,000 meters
1 meter = 1,000 millimeters or 100 centimeters
1 kilogram = 1,000 grams
1 gram = 1,000 milligrams
kilo: x1,000
centi: 1/100
milli: 1/1,000
Waaaaay easier to convert
No need to convert miles to yards or feet to inches or stones to pounds to ounces
Speedometers and road signs are in miles in UK0 -
I've lost 3 stone
Feels more weighty than I've lost 42lbs
But I have to convert that to 20kg for my Swiss friend0 -
Espressocycle wrote: »Boy, defensive much? My question pertains to the fact that a stone is a HUGE unit of measure for the human body given the 14 lbs is like three months of healthy weight loss. Sure, America's insistence on using old English weights and measures is stupid, but using stones to measure weight loss is as silly as using grams.
I'd agree if it was just stone. However we use stones and pounds. I've never met anyone that uses stones without lbs. It's not 14.928 stones that is commonly used, it's 14 stone 13.
It makes the overall number more meaningful to those brought up using it. 160lb, 170lb 225lb are all fairly meaningless to me. However 11st 6lb, 12st 2lb, and 16st 1lb all make sense to me.
We use them because we've always used them and because of that they are useful subdivisions to us.0 -
Pounds come and go, but once you've lost a stone, you know you've accomplished something.
Passing a stone is even more difficult than losing one, I might add. Sorry, what were we talking about again?0 -
As an American with European(ish) parents and who grew up all over the place, I think we should do away with stones and pounds and miles and ounces and get with the rest of the world, IMO. While we're at it, we should get rid of Fahrenheit and 12 hour clocks. "Just because" is not an answer...we can learn new things!0
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Don't get me started on feet and inches, miles and yards, and ounces and pounds. BLEH. I grew up with decimals and it's a nightmare.0
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I drove an Aston Martin once. It got 7.3 hectares per liter of petrol.0
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Espressocycle wrote: »This is for you Brits. Please explain why you guys are always posting about weight loss in stone. I mean, one stone is 14 lbs! That's a huge unit of measurement to use when talking about weight loss. It would be like measuring cocaine in pounds. I'm not trying to be insulting, just genuinely confused about how it works when one stone could be two clothing sizes.
Dude... you're American... we still use the Imperial System. You can't pick on someone else for still being in diapers when you are running around in diapers too!
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Why do Yanks still use Imperial as measurement when the rest of the world uses Metric?
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