Wednesday 5 May 2021

customary units

Though the super-antiquated unit of measure might presumably have been settled by now with only one hold-out, we learn that there are significant surveying discrepancies in the United States with different jurisdictions employing different standards and tolerances, which while not making an appreciable change in demarcation between neighbours, on a grander scale can shift boundaries. While the overall harmonisation of America with the rest of the world has yet to accrue the necessary threshold for change, the US is being compelled by 2023 to settle on a uniform factor for conversion in order to eliminate dispute. The Mendenhall Order of 1893, an early attempt to put America on the metric system, defined a metre as 39.37 inches with a foot being twelve with forty out of fifty states using this measure for cartographical purposes with the remaining ten not specifying and six of those using both. Other obsolete feet in Europe prior to the adoption of mesures usuelles between 1817 and 1871 were the FuรŸ, voet, pied, stopa, and fod ranging from 270 to 350 millimetres in length and often varied, unpredictably from region to region.