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Re: Denarii (was: Celtic months)
- To: John Cowan <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Denarii (was: Celtic months)
- From: "Raymond A. Brown" <[email protected]>
- Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 06:58:04 +0000
- Cc: [email protected] (Andrew Smith), [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
- References: <[email protected]> from"Andrew Smith" at Jan 31, 99 08:04:37 pm
At 4:29 pm -0500 31/1/99, John Cowan wrote:
>Andrew Smith scripsit:
>
>> One of my personal language favourites was finding that the word for pound
>> in Dutch now also means half-a-kilo in metrics.
>
>Ditto in French and German, but not Italian, where it means 1/3 kg.
>(Apparently the local pound in Italy, or parts thereof, was rather
>smaller than elsewhere.)
>
I knew the French & German pound was half a kilo, but hadn't come across
the Italian pound before. I guess that while the Dutch, Germans & French
presumably were using the pounds similar to the current Brit & American 16
ounce avoirdupois pound before metrication, the Italians still held fast to
the 12 ounce pound of their Roman forebears. (Kilo is approx 35.27 ounces)
Ray.