There was a brief flurry of interest last week about bringing back imperial units of measurement. Well, maybe. Some never went away of course (pints of beer, miles on roads, etc) while others reside in fond memory.
Do you have a favourite unit of measurement? Maybe the bushel or the peck? Or the pole (160 poles to the acre, remember). Or the cup if you're fond of American recipes? I've certainly got some unfavourite ones such as the erg and the dyne (much loathed pre-SI units from school physics days – no wonder I was useless at it). Then there's the foot-poundal which is part of the absolute English system of units. What? The scruple must be a strong contender, but only if you have a conscience.
But as for favourites, it's none of these. For me, it has to be the acre-foot which is a measure of volume. Visualise an acre field covered with water to a depth of one foot and you have it. And this is quite easily done if you remember that an acre is 10 square chains (and that a chain is the length of a cricket wicket). So easy.
One acre foot is 271328.0726 gallons or 20,020,311,771 minims (a US liquid measure). So useful.
Heureusement, the hectare-metre will never catch on, although it does apparently officially exist. This is largely because, like the benighted European Commission, it has no obvious links to cricket.
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