Nuts and Bolts: the FFF System.

How do you measure things?

If you're in Britain then you'll use Imperial Measurements for some things (distance travelled in a car will be in miles, the height of a person will probably be in feet and inches) and SI units for many other things (recipes are now usually exclusively in grams and litres).

But there are many other systems in use around the world. A recipe from the USA will use measurements like cups and sticks (butter comes in sticks). Distances over the sea, measured in nautical miles, will depend on the length of an arc subtended by a degree of...something or other. I sort of understand it, but it would take too long to write it down. 

Astronomy's distances are measured by the distance travelled by a particle of light in an Earth year (and how long, now I come to think about it, is an Earth year? Is it always the same?). 

And what about the FFF system of units?

I love this system. It's basically throwing up one's hands in despair and acknowledging that, as all systems of measurements are awkward, then we might as well be silly about it.

The FFF system depends on the Fathom, the Firkin, and the Fortnight. A fathom is usually used to measure depth of water, and is a bit less than two metres; a firkin is a barrel, and its size will depend upon how big it is, but in the FFF system its contents weigh 90 pounds, or about 41 kilograms; and a fortnight, or two weeks, is in Britain the standard unit of summer holidays (no, not really).

Is the FFF system used, except as a joke?

Well, some computer systems use micro-fortnights (a micro-fortnight is very roughly a second or so) in places where it doesn't really matter; and the expression furlongs per fortnight, or firkins per fortnight, is used as an expression to mean any obscure unit.

Ah well. 

I suppose these scientists and computer programmers don't get an awful lot of fun.

Word To Use Today: fortnight. This is a term still commonly used in Britain to mean two weeks. It has nothing to do with computer games. The word comes from the Old English fēowertīene, fourteen days.