Posted by Dave W on July 09, 2000 at 08:52:47 from dewaller.demon.co.uk:
In Reply to: Re: Semaphore & other important matters posted by Mike Field on July 08, 2000 at 16:46:59:
My belief is that in previous times, including AR's day, people were expected to understand and use units which seem incredibly obscure now, like rods, poles, perches, chains, hectares, poundals, slugs etc. I seem to remember that at one time the standard UK school exercise writing book had some of this stuff printed on the inside of the front cover.
The rationalisation of the various systems of dimensions got rid of most of these these, but I think its likely that at the time these units were abandoned there were people writing letters to the newspapers etc complaining about the folly of introducing a new system that nobody could comprehend, rather similar to your own comments!