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February 24, 2004
Of Pints And Wine Gallons
Apparently my last quote of the moment caused some confusion, so let me clear it up.
Mark brought up a good point that British pints use 20 oz to their pints. I'll admit I did not know that. But what Mark didn't say is that British ounces and US ounces are different.
When the United States became independent from Britain, they kept the same measurement system (among other things). Until 1824, the British and American systems were the same. Then Britain changed their system, to be defined in terms of their metric equivalents, in this case they redefined volume in terms of the gallon, and corrected every measurement smaller. The Americans did not follow suit.
So back to the ad. Since the newspaper is American, the ad is for a pub in Seattle, I would think it safe to assume the phrase "20 oz to our pints", to mean 20 American ounces to our American pints. Because 20 American ounces is less than 1 British pint.
Source: Bartleby.com
By the way, it was an ad for Kell's an Irish pub, not a British one, and Ireland is on the metric system.
Comments
mark's ass got saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacked!!
Posted by: pete at February 24, 2004 9:18 AM
Maybe it is time to change your quote. How about this one: "The NEA (National Education Association) is a terrorist organization."
Posted by: Teresa at February 24, 2004 12:02 PM
Now, how come you had to go and bring up the Irish?
Posted by: Rew at February 24, 2004 12:40 PM
All of great Britain is offically metric. While most things are, or at least were, imperial last time I was over there, most people still use the imperial system.
Posted by: Ian at February 24, 2004 1:18 PM
Stop using my name
Posted by: ian at February 24, 2004 6:18 PM
Americans could simplify this whole beer thing by measuring glasses of beer by the gill. "Bring me four gills o' brew," I'd say in the home country, and I'd get me four gills o' brew. What could be more simple than that?
Posted by: mark at February 25, 2004 4:13 AM