Two Badgers

July 05, 2023 – Old Kilpatrick, Scotland

In the UK, “pounds” is money, “stone” is weight, and a “fortnight” is the average duration of a holiday.

The official system of weights and measures in England and Scotland is metric, until you get in a car, then distance reverts to “yards” and “miles”.   As Canadians, we are comfortable with multiple measuring systems, it is a way of life for us, but there are some British units of measurement that are still quite baffling.

Canadians don’t use “stone” to measure weight.  One of our relatives said that he/she had lost “a stone and a half”.  I had no idea if that was a little or a lot until I looked it up.  Turns out it is a lot, about 21 pounds! (Congratulations, by the way!)

Another unit Canadians never use is a measure of time.  If somebody says, “I will meet you there at half six”, I have to think about it.  Is that half an hour before, or half an hour after six? 

The Germans have a marvellous micro-measuring unit, a muggeseggele, which translates as “a housefly’s scrotum”.

Americans use a New York Second to describe the shortest unit of time in the multiverse.  A New York Second is even smaller than an ohnosecond, that period of time between doing something stupid and realizing you have done it.

Two shakes of a lamb’s tail is a common time interval.  I have been watching the lambs in the field at Gavinburn, they don’t shake their tail so much as quiver it, so “two shakes” isn’t very long.

A horse’s height is measured by the unique standard “hands”.  The horse itself is a standard of measurement, a “length” is the stride of an average horse.

A “cubit” is mentioned in the Bible.  It is “the length of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger”. 

In the pub, volume is measured as a “pony”, a “pint”, or a “shot”, depending on the beverage of choice.  These two obviously ordered one of each.

Adam and Aaron last time we were in Scotland.

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The best unit of measurement was discovered by Adam and Aaron here in Scotland.  They overheard a conversation (probably in a pub) that went something like this (roll your “R’s” while you are saying it):

A & Aa didn’t catch what it was the pub patrons were describing, but it doesn’t really matter.  Whatever it was, you know exactly what size the thing was.

“Badgers” as a unit of measurement caught on with us this weekend.  Everything that required a size estimate was gauged relative to the number of badgers the object occupied.

Watch out for that pothole! … That’s a five-badger!  

Or

I saw a remote-control lawnmower working at the castle.

How big was it?

Ah, just a wee one, a one-badger.

Or

Which suitcase did you pack?

The one roughly the size of …

… Two Badgers

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Emma, demonstrating an eight-badger span.

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