russell (11/04/82)
WEIGHT AND MEASURE CONVERSION
Chuck Young's response to my attempt to convert English (Im-
perial) measurements to US prompted me to check some of my
books. To a degree Chuck is right. This all, yet again,
reconfirms my contention that we (English) composed the
language, you (Americans) decomposed it!
The only apparent errors in the conversions I gave actually
were a result of my assumption that we agreed on the con-
tents of a tablespoon which, as you will see below, is actu-
ally substantially different. All the other measurements I
gave were by dry weight (avoirdupois) on which we more or
less agree. On this basis it would be incorrect to use
Chuck's translation of the measurement for the vinegar as
the quantity needed is actually 2 5/6 cups (say 3 for sim-
plicity).
It transpires that one of the few culinary measures on which
English, Americans, Europeans, and Australians all agree is
the teaspoon. Everyone agrees that a teaspoon is 5 millil-
iters. The following chart may possibly help to some extent.
Unfortunately I have not yet been able to find definitive
measurements for the Metric "Spoons" (except the teaspoon of
course), although the French, at least, do use the same
names as the other cultures.
Name Imperial American Australian Metric
1 Teaspoon 5 ml 5 ml 5 ml 5 ml
1 Tablespoon 17.7 ml 14.2 ml 20 ml
Liquids
1/4 pint 2/3 cup 142 ml
1/2 pint 1 1/4 cups 283 ml
3/4 pint 2 cups 425 ml
1 pint 2 1/2 cups 567 ml
1 1/2 pints 3 3/4 cups 851 ml
1 3/4 pints 4 1/2 cups 1 litre
2 pints 5 cups (2 1/2 pints)
Solids
Butter 1 lb 2 cups
Flour 1 lb 4 cups
Sugar (gran) 1 lb 2 cups
Sugar (powd) 1 lb 3 cups
Rice 8 oz 1 cup
1 oz 28 g
1 lb 454 g
If anyone has a good, complete, conversion chart for all cu-
linary measurements I would appreciate receiving it.
Russell Cairnsfowler (11/05/82)
That's all very fine if you make the (erronious) assumption that
Imperial and American ounces are the same. In fact they're not and
I've made a considerable amount of money making bets with drunken
Canadians that the Imperial gallon (160 Imperial ounces) is not 5/4
times as large as an American gallon. The American ounce is about
25/24 larger (to a couple of places of precision) and the actual
ratio of the gallons is therefore about 6/5. The conversion tables
that you sent around are based on the same error.
-- Rob Fowlerrvpalliende (11/07/82)
The important thing about the metric system is NOT its simplicity, as most people believ', but its universality. You don't hav' to convert from one kind of meters to another; and on the other hand, as we hav' seen, there are different kinds of gallons, ounces and the like. When the metric system was invented, ev'ry country in Europe had a measur' called foot, all of them different. Clearly a common measur' system was needed, and a byproduct of the creation of the new system was its simplicity. Pablo Alliende.
johnl (11/11/82)
Pablo is right -- the most important advantage of the Metric system is its universality, not its uniformity. People all over the world can use metric recipes without conversions. If only he believed the same thing about English orthography. Cheerfully, John Levine decvax!yale-co!jrl harpo!esquire!ima!johnl ucbvax!cbosgd!ima!johnl