Metrication challenge

Subject: Metrication challenge
From: Marje
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 01:53 PM

Here's a light-hearted challenge for anyone with nothing better to do. Now that metrication is, if not standard, pretty widespread on the eastern side of the Atlantic, it's time some old songs were brought up to date. Irish songs could even include reference to euros, but the UK will have to make to do with decimalisation. I'll suggest a few lines or titles:

Never let a sailor boy 2.5 centimetres above your knee.

I'm 804 kilometres from my home.

Keep your hand on your half-pee (not the exact amount, I know, but the nearest available coin of the realm).

And I will come again, my love, though 'twere 16,000 kilometres.

Over to you,

Marje

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 02:37 PM

What's that one from "Hair"?

"Metrication can be fun"?

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 03:26 PM

22.86cm will please a lady.
He took the 5p and he marched awa.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 05:05 PM

Keep your hand on your half-pee (not the exact amount, I know, but the nearest available coin of the realm).
The 1/2 penny coin was demonitised very shortly after decimalisation, so now needs further updating.

Maybe 'keep your hand on your tuppence', the coin is the same size (approx) as the pre-decimal half-penny.
Although the value is less.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 05:37 PM

Feed the birds a sixth of 5p a bag........
There was a crooked man, walked a crooked 1.60934km, found a crooked 2.5p, by a crooked stile.
Every morning at the mine you could see him arrive, he stood 1.9812 meters and weighed 245 (Big John).
Oh what a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before, Oh what a beauty, it must be 0.6096m or even more!
0.0254m worm, 0.0254m worm, measuring the marigold......

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 05:42 PM

Just as an aside, I used to love to hear Burl Ives singing 'Inchworm' when I was a little lad!

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 06:09 PM

"12.8748 more miles to Louisville"

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Dead Horse
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 06:12 PM

It completely buggers up A Health To The Barley Mow.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: GUEST,ketchdana
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 02:50 AM

I gave my love a cherry that had no six and a third kilograms,

(Let's see, ("no"=zero) times 6.35029 equals, uh, nuthin'. So that works out. Now if I can just get words to fit the notes. And rhyme.)

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Marje
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 04:58 AM

You're quite right about the half-p coin, Nigel, I was being a bit sloppy there. We'll have to make it two-pee (or tuppence for those of us old enough to know what tuppence is).

And yes, Horse, the Barley Mow would be a much greater obstacle course than it already is.

Marje

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 05:18 AM

Ah, Marje: tuppence was 2 real pennies [2d]. The modern minidisc is called a two-pence [tu-pens] piece. & while the ½-new-penny piece did survive, it was a half-penny, not a proper 'heighpnee' that we grew up with.

What would be the use of finding a crooked 2-&-a-half-pence beside a crooked style!

~M~

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 07:01 AM

MtheGM: Ah, Marje: tuppence was 2 real pennies
Tuppence was also a silver (half-groat) or copper coin of value 2 (old) pence.

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Bernard
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 07:43 AM

2.778 kilometres, 2.778 kilometres,
2.778 kilometres onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred...

(with apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson!)

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 08:50 AM

Just a couple that come to mind:

"He was barely a man in his grandfather's coat,
Sewn into the lining a 50-pence coin"

"Then at length we stood 370.6368 meters away,
How I wish I were in Sherbrooke now!
Our cracked 1.81436948 kilogramers made an awful din
But with one fat ball the Yank stove us in"

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 08:52 AM

And I would walk point eight-o-four megameteres
And I would walk point eight-o-four more
To be the man who walked One point six-o-eight megametres to fall down at your door.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 09:36 AM

I took from me pocket, a handful of gold, and onto the counter three pounds fifteen pence I rolled

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: GUEST,Ebor_Fiddler (Well-known pedant)
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 09:41 AM

I think you'l find, dear Georgiansilver that your three guineas is worth a lot more that your figure since we went off the gold standard before the war!

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 12:22 PM

Well thank you Guest.. but in British Pounds.. the value of a guinea was one pound one shilling.. which is now one pound and five pence....... so my fact is correct......

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 31 Jul 12 - 03:15 PM

Would "5/12p Lane" count?

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: GUEST,Stan
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 02:07 PM

How would you metricate the chorus that starts

A barrel, a half barrel etc?

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 03:05 PM

A barrel is a barrel... a half barrel is a half barrel.. don't think one can metricate that unless gthey are specific to gallons/pints... convert to litres!

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: GUEST,Stan
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 04:10 PM

Oh you're no fun at all. What about a pipikin and a small bowl?

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 05:14 PM

Here is the full list from the Barley Mow:


barrel                163.65 Liter
half barrel        81.83 Liter
bushel                36.37 Liter
half bushel        18.19 Liter
gallon                4.55 Liter
half gallon        2.28 Liter
quart                 1.14 Liter
pint                5.68 Deciliter
half pint         2.84 Deciliter
gill                0.71 Deciliter
half gill        0.36 Deciliter
quarter gill         018 Deciliter
niperkin        0.09 Deciliter

I don't believe the brown bowl is an actual measure, more the drinking implement.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: pavane
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 05:32 PM

I thought Tom Lehrer covered this in 1971

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: pavane
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 05:34 PM

Yes, Decimalisation is in the DT
It starts

[SUNG:] Now five pence is five-twelfths of a shilling
And a shilling of course is five-hundredths of a pound
So five pence then is two cents plus a twelfth of a cent
But of course there's no such thing as a twelfth of a cent,
So you call it two cents and already you've made a profit.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: GUEST,Frug
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 06:36 PM

The Saxon 5p (shilling)
Half a 2.5p (sixpence)
And those great musical acts that need renaming like:
The Metrebirds, Kilometres Davis, The Rolling Kilos,

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: PHJim
Date: 02 Aug 12 - 12:04 AM

Paul Caldwell and Brad Halls, a doctor and a lawyer from Cobourg, Ontario who called themselves The New Kids On The Block a few years before the "boy band" of the same name came into existence, recorded this parody on Five Foot Two shortly after Canada converted to the metric system:

She's a centimetre shorter than a metre and a quarter,
And ev'ry millimetre is in perfect working order,
Has anybody seen my gal?
I know I'm only human but I still have the acumen
To know her eyes are flashing 'bout a half a million lumen,
Has anybody seen my gal?
A pair of gorgeous gams on her fifty kilograms
When she twirls her skirts.
My chest just thumps and my heart rate jumps
About a hundred kilohertz!
But Fahrengrade or Centiheit,
She's gonna light my fire tonight,
Has anybody seen my gal?

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: GUEST,eric burns
Date: 03 Aug 12 - 09:19 PM

Oh dear, oh dear, you are trying to imperialise the metric system with converting everything into metric. Rest assured no country need ever shed its cultural heritage to become metric. Whoever tells you otherwise is either a blind patriot, and/or to lazy to learn the simple metric system.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 04:29 AM

You got 16,000 kilograms and what do you get, Another day older and deeper in debt!

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 06:24 AM

It would be nice to agree, eric. But I fear that, when the last of the old generation dies, the old measures become obsolete and, if of any interest, then only to those of antiquarian bent, alas.

~M~

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 06:30 AM

Half owre half, owre tae Aberdour
'Tis 91·44 metres deep

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: Young Buchan
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 06:55 AM

Tell him to plough me 0.404686 hectares of land
Between the salt water and the sea sand.

Subject: RE: Metrication challenge
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 08:05 AM

Eric, I think you missed the first post: "Here's a light-hearted challenge for anyone with nothing better to do." It is just a bit of fun, not a serious thread!