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Carpal Tunnel
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"Firkin'" is actually a unit of measure. I mean, it must be. After all, things are always too firkin' big or too firkin' small or too firkin' far away. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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old hand
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old hand
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firkin
I've always heard it as frickin'.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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a unit of measure, equal to 1/4 barrel or 9 gallonsHence the devoted staff behind the counter being traditionally referred to at closing time as drunken firkin bar stewards 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A firkin is indeed a unit of measure, equal to 1/4 barrel or 9 gallons.Thanks Bingley. I wonder why I already knew that? Can you just imagine saying "too nine-gallons big" or "too nine-gallons too high"? Or in the case of beer, "too nine-gallons little"?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"too nine-gallons big" or "too nine-gallons too high"? Or in the case of beer, "too nine-gallons little"?
Or "he went the whole nine-gallons"!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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CK wonders, misguidedly I wonder why I already knew that?
mtywtk,ial [more than you wanted to know, in all liklihood]
Casks are traditionally made from European oak or more commonly nowadays from stainless steel or aluminium. They have an opening at the front (approximately 25 mm diameter) for attachment of a tap and a second opening (shive hole) at the top (approximately 50 mm diameter) through which the beer is racked into the cask. The front opening is stopped with a wooden or plastic plug (the keystone). Similarly, the shive hole is plugged with a shive. Both keystone and shive contain central knockout sections. The cask also comes with a hard peg known as a hard spile and a soft peg known as a soft spile. Traditional cask sizes are derived from the 36 gallon barrel. They are:*
4.5 gallons - Pin
9 gallons - Firkin
18 gallons - Kilderkin (Kil or Kiln)
27 gallons - Half-hogshead
36 gallons - Barrel
54 gallons - Hogshead
*I'd quote my source, but I have no idea where I got this, I LIU when I got a question about hogshead...
the worthless word for the day is: hogshead
choose one (or more):
a) a large barrel
b) 3 kilderkins
c) 6 firkins
d) 12 pins
e) 2 half-hogsheads
f) something totally unrelated to a cask
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>The front opening is stopped with a wooden or plastic plug (the keystone). Similarly, the shive hole is plugged with a shive.
Not a bung in a bunghole??? How interesting.
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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So now, I'm wondering about the etymology of "hogshead." FWIW Department: Webster's says that hogsheads are "any of various units of volume or capacity ranging from 63 to 140 gallons, ... esp. a unit of capacity used in liquid measure in the United States, equal to 63 gallons." And a source previously cited by tsuwm mentions 100-gallon hogsheads. http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=26394 By those standards, the aforementioned 54-gallon hogsheads seem to be more like pigletpates.
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Carpal Tunnel
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wondering about the etymology of "hogshead."
Isn't that just like this bunch? Start off with a nice decent thread about feelthy words and it degenerates into some kind of vulgar discussion of etymology!
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