Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Cherrycoke
BLAME IT ON THE ENGLISH!
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I blame the Romans, who devised some of the systems of measurement that are still in use in the US.
The inch and ounce both derive from uncia, the Latin name for the fraction 1/12. The foot (Latin pes) still has 12 inches, but over time the pound came to have 16 ounces. The inch and ounce are both similar in size to the equivalent Roman measurements.
The mile comes from the Latin mille passus, or thousand paces. A pace (Latin passus) was two steps, and was equal to five Roman feet. Thus, a mille passus had 5,000 Roman feet, which is similar to the 5,280 feet in a mile.
12 inches form one foot because the Romans had no way of representing arbitrary fractions. The Romans used 12 for their fractions (each fraction of 12 even has its own one-word name in Latin) because 2, 3, 4 and 6 all divide evenly into 12.