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old hand
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OP
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The word measure, even if we limit ourselves to the noun, has many facets. Clearly, a scientist mainly uses it in the sense of "quantification of a phenomenon", i.e. value-free. In other circles, it is used to describe actions taken to change something: "draconian measures". I would like to hear from various quarters, what other uses of the word spring to your mind, and what you think are the original viz. the derived meanings..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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in music, the word is used to describe regular divisions of a piece. they are defined by the meter. kind of like a ruler... you know, a foot-stick. 
formerly known as etaoin...
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There's always, "The measure of a man". Which could, I suppose, have a double meaning. 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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... how do you pronounce it? Around here, it's said, "MEH-sher", but I often hear (especially on TV) "MAY-sher".
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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as in your first pronouncizing, but with a z: MEH-zher.
formerly known as etaoin...
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old hand
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OP
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"The measure of a man" - and man as the measure of all things. This is the direction I would like to explore. Where, in the space of values, do you locate the word?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And, of course...for good measure.
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Carpal Tunnel
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and measure up--and the converse up to measure
in the garment trade there are 'standard measurement', (for some mythicly perfect person) and made to measure clothing, (couture).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Where, in the space of values, do you locate the word?
I think the phrase the measure of a man, implies the quality of the man[sic] must measure up to a high standard. they must have integrity, and be hard-working, and kind, and generous.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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...a high standard. they must have integrity, and be hard-working, and kind, and generous.
There's no place like home.... there's no place like home... there's no place like home..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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and your little dog, too...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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In Québec French, measure can also be used as a generic name for the item doing the measuring. Like if you want to cut a piece of wood to a specific size, you'd say to somebody with you, "Do you have a measure?"
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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This is true of brit English, too, belM - although it isn't in very common use, the majority of people would understood if used in that way.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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<<..where, in the space of values..>>
In the neighborhood of your inquiry might be 'to speak in measured words.'
But I wonder; since, generally speaking, value is quantitative and a category of measure, if your question doesn't really signal a being lost at sea in metaphor, 'value' and 'measure' deriving from each other but intended, in this space, to cast light on something else but not on each other.
Here, that something would seem to be the category of virtues, or qualities, ascribed to or discerned in individuals. Their abstraction to measure would both seems an act of observation and one of 'heirarchization' (what does it mean to say that one has more of this or that virtue than another?) and, since the same abstraction produces the moral shading, it is suggestive of some interesting deep-lying social structures.
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old hand
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Dear Inselpeter, 'to speak in measured words.' indeed exemplifies the direction of my inquiry. I wondered if the "moderation"(*) side of the word has gone out of use, or if moderation as a virtue has ceased to rank among important values. You may ask why I had not explained it in this way at the start. I preferred to sound out the actual space of associations first without bias. I freely admit that I easily get lost at sea in metaphor. But fortunately there are other ships cruising nearby in this here ocean . (*) the term moderation does not completely cover the sense of measure meant by the architect Le Corbusier when he said he wanted his buildings to be at the measure of humans.
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Pooh-Bah
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<<whether moderation has ceased to rank among important values>>
Even *if* it has fallen into disuse, or victim to disinterest, it may (in a sense that is, perhaps, also related to your sense of measure) remain important. The more so for such fall.
However, I suspect it has not, at least not entirely.
Moderation is inherently undramatic and doesn't sell well. I wonder if the duration of (any) crisis is not best dramatized as the conflict of extremes, while its conclusion may be punctuated with terms of moderation. Such as, for example, in this country, Murrow's measured words near the conclusion of the McArthy era. Dramatically, they are cut to fit and this probably accounts for some of their appeal. All that raises the question whether drama is not, in some sense and to some (limited) extent, the measure of crisis in public life.
I would be interested to know more about this architect Le Corbusier and what he meant.
Probably not what struck me when I visited Salem, Mass, where the colonial buildings are at the scale of human manual labor.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I would have said "speak in measured tones", not "speak in measured words". But whatever!
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veteran
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veteran
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I've never heard it pronounced /mES@r/, but have heard it as /mEZ@r/, with a voiced fricative as in garage and not voiceless as in nation.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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voiced fricative
yeah, what he says...
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Carpal Tunnel
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To hum or not to hum (whilst shushing) tis the question at throat.
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