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and going down.....
gallon 128 oz
1/2 gallon 64 oz
quart 32 oz
pint 16 oz
1/2 pint 8 oz
gill 4 oz
1/2 gill 2 oz
gill like Jill.. but gill and half gill are almost never used.. except in old irish bars-- where 1/2 gill is a shot-- and gill is full double.. (as opposed to a standard double, which is just 3 oz.)--or at least that is the only place i have heard the word.
these being US measurement, not imperial ones..
does anyone know the scale for dry measure-- today portland cement is sold (US) in 90lb bags-- or half barrels. leading me to guess that 180 lbs is a full barrel-- but i presume that the barrel is really a volume measurement, and the 90lb is specific to portland cement--from someone, who in her time, has done way too much masonary work
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>Not a bung in a bunghole??? How interesting.
good catch, teD -- it's seemingly a Britishism for bung:
3. A thin, flat cork used for stopping a wide-mouthed bottle; also, a thin wooden bung for casks. [dictionary.com]
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an other thought-- the defination talks of casks-- and the various sizes, including barrel..
but now days, if i saw a wooden container, with straight, or slightly bowed sides, bound with hoops-- i would, no matter what its size, call it a barrel-- barrels are quite common in NY-- our water supply is for the most part, gravity feed, the water pressure is sufficient to get water up 65 to 70 feet (or about 6 floors) Building taller than that all have water barrel on the roof for counter pressure.. Usually these barrels are 500 gallon range.. they are such a common part of the NY skyline most NY don't even think about why the exist..
i never thing of a barrel as a quantity- i think of a barrel as a thing.
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another prevalent container in the US, particularly in the miliary-industrial complex, is the 55-gallon drum. I'll never forget the first letter I got from my buddy who went to Viet Nam in '67 -- it went something like this.... http://members.sitegadgets.com/kolsun/story.html
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For more measurement information than you really need, try this URL: http://www.entisoft.com/Library/Entisoft/Web_Site/Original/esunitsi.htmA unit I didn't see mentioned is Jereboam. I found three different definitions, here is one: A "jeroboam" (jereboam is a misprint) is a wine bottle that holds about 4/5 of a gallon.
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>
but now days, if i saw a wooden container, with straight, or slightly bowed sides, bound with hoops-- i would, no matter what its size, call it a barrel-- barrels are
quite common in NY-- our water supply is for the most part, gravity feed, the water pressure is sufficient to get water up 65 to 70 feet (or about 6 floors) Building
taller than that all have water barrel on the roof for counter pressure.. Usually these barrels are 500 gallon range.. they are such a common part of the NY skyline
most NY don't even think about why the exist..
i never thing of a barrel as a quantity- i think of a barrel as a thing.
of:
That's interesting. I had heard some years ago that antiquated building codes in NY required the big barrels on top of low and medium-rise buildings as fire department reservoirs. Can't remember where, but in this discussion there was a "revelation" that there are more coopers in NY than anyplace else in the country.
Having been a firefighter I have some knowledge of hydraulics. If you have a certain height the water goes to from the gravity pressure, you would need to pump it higher than that to get it into the cisterns on the roof. Then the cisterns would have to feed ALL of the building, otherwise the higher head in the cistern would push all the water down to the gravity head level.
Ted
TEd
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There's also a methuselah, which is a wine bottle holding approximately 6.5 quarts (a bit over a gallon and a half). I assume this is the American not the British quarts and gallons. I also found this at a web site: A magnum of wine is two quarts; a tappit-hen of wine or rum is a double magnum; a jeroboam of wine or rum is a double “tappit-hen”; and a rehoboam (q.v.) is a double jeroboam. http://www.bartleby.com/81/17518.html And this from yet another web site (and this one agrees with my memory about other sizes of bottles): Bottle sizes can also vary: Applying generally to wines other than Champagne: split 187.5 ml 1/2 bottle 375 ml (aka Fillette) bottle 750 ml magnum 1.5 liter (2 bottles) Marie-Jeanne 2.25 liters (3 bottles) (Red Bordeaux) double magnum 3 liters (4 bottles) jeroboam 4.5 liters (6 bottles) imperial 6 liters (8 bottles) Applying to Champagne: split 200 ml 1/2 bottle 375 ml pint 400 ml bottle 800 ml Magnum 1.5 liter (2 bottles) Jeroboam 3 liters (4 bottles) (& Burgundy) Rehoboam 4.5 liters (6 bottles) (& Burgundy) Methuselah 6 liters (8 bottles) (& Burgundy) Salmanazar 9 liters (12 bottles) Balthazar 12 liters (16 bottles) Nebuchadnezzar 15 liters (20 bottles) http:////216.254.0.2/~winepage/cellar/codedfaq.html#2.9
TEd
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Thanks TEd-- i didn't know all the details-- but yes, there is a pump to bring the water up to what ever height, and fill the barrel and keeps the water flowing. but our 100+ year old water works are still pretty spectacular-- and our water quality is one of the best in the nation, and with out any real treatment ( a bit of filtering, and a modest amount of chlorine) exceeds EPA water quality standards.. i love ny water, and have taken tours of the ny water works.. both supply side and (Ugh!) waste side treatment plants.
and yes, i have heard the same bit of trivia about NYC having more coopers than the rest of the country-- another reason is, until a few years ago, brooklyn was the largest wine producing county in the state-- which always surprised people, who expected some county up in the finger lakes area to lead the pack (and one does now, but i don't know which--Faldage might, since he is up that way)
Manashevits (that spelling looks wrong.. i am sure its wrong-i'll look it up and come back and edit.) the kosher food company, used to make all of its kosher wine in a winery in brooklyn--making Kings County NY the large wine producing county in the state.. they used a few barrels, too.
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Pooh-Bah
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[Edgar Bergen]
Origins A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English:
hogshead (a hog's head, prob from shape)
Etymological Dictionary of the English Language:
HOGSHEAD, ... Certainly derived from ME. hogges hed, "hog's head" [duh]; a fanciful name, of which the origin is not known; ... Hence were borrowed MDan. hogshoved, a hog's head, modified into Dan. oxehoved, as if it meant "ox-head;" Low G. hukeshovet, a hogshead (Lubben); also Swed. oxhufvud, a hogshead, lit. "ox-head;" G. oxhoft, a hogshead; Du. oxhooft.'
and Horsefeathers & Other Curious Words, Charles Funk:
hogshead For six hundred years, at least, this measure of liquid capacity has been in our language (and taken into other Teutonic languages, with hog sometimes changed to bull or ox), but as yet the mystery of its source or a plausible reason for the name remains unsolved. One guess, quoted by the learned W.W. Skeat, is that the earliest cooper of these casks of two-barrel size branded his product with the outlines of the head of a hog or of an ox. But Skeat also says that most of the conjectural sources are "silly." And I have nothing to add to that.
[/Edgar Bergan]
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I liked Edgar Bergen best when he was a ventriloquist.
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