But I want to talk about the Ancient Hebrew system of measuring length instead. In this time, the measurements started out as approximations of the length of certain body parts, and again were standardized to be used by the entire nation. Distances longer than an "reed" (approx. 9 feet) were measured by the number of paces or the days that it took to journey there. Distances did not become standard until the Greek and Roman influence of later centuries. The measurements that were used were rarely taught, just accepted as commonplace and that everyone understood what was meant by them. I mean, really, how could you tell a fishing story without indicating the length of your fish and exclaiming that it is 4 feet long! Idiocy
A cubit is the
basic unit of measurement in the Hebrew system, and is the approximate length from fingertips to elbow. In the culture there became two standardized measurements, the common cubit and the long cubit which measured 17.5 inches and 21.5 inches respectively. A handsbreadth was another, measuring the length of the palm across the base of the fingers (approx. 4 inches). In Ezekiel's time (600 BC) the measurements of the future temple were given mainly in "reeds" which was a length of wood cut to the length of six long cubits, or approximately 9 feet. For me personally, I enjoy the logically metric system. I guess I really am a science nerd. :-)
I kind of resent the sentiment that anyone who doesn't use the metric system is an idiot, but we'll worry about that some other time. I do think it is interesting how arbitrary measurements are, when they are things that we view as very quantitative in nature. But does their arbitrary nature make them folk knowledge? I don't really think so. It's true that most people learn approximately what an inch is from their parents at home before they ever start school, but they also learn it from rulers. I don't know that we have ever found a clear enough of folk knowledge to make a ruling one way or the other on this, but it is an interesting question to me.
ReplyDeleteWell it's interesting to me that humans used used their body to try and form a common system of measurement. It was practical and it's what they knew. I mean they didn't have rulers, obviously, so they had to start somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThat IS interesting, Misa. Especially in that that seems to have been a trend across many different cultures. Use your body to measure other things. And obviously, they saw that people had different sized bodies and so these measurements weren't exact, which leads me to believe that either they figured that people would have enough experience with a normal distribution of data that their sample averages would reflect the population average (making the measurement somewhat standard) OR that there is some other reason - that somehow the closeness or the personal-ness or the physicality of using one's own body to measure things outside of one's self just made inherent sense. Do you think that we still do this, at all? I mean, we use standardized measurements, obviously, but do you think that there is anything in our human nature that leads us to, consciously or subconsciously, measure our things against ourselves? When we look at an ant crawling on the ground, it is small because we are big, and when we stand next to the ocean, we are small and it goes on forever. But I wonder if there is something in us that still uses our own bodies as the ultimate rulers.
ReplyDelete@ Lauren I think it depends on which measurement system you are using as to whether it is folk knowledge or not. The imperial and metric systems are taught to us in schools. I don't really think they would count. But what about a dollop, a smattering, a glorp, or yay big. I ask you how big is a yay? but within a certain group of people, namely my cousins, it is unquestionably clear.
ReplyDeleteOr what about the pigeon, a standard set in different laboratories to measure drug potency. Or the miliHelen, the quantity of beauty needed to launch one ship. or the PHI index, measuring the number of goats a virgin pure in heart can return to their enchantments forms as handsome young men.
Ok I admit it I only included those last ones because they are cool, not because they have any relevance to the discussion. But seriously don't you have the urge now to tell your roommate she is 13 mHelen or a .7 PHI?
Hahaha. Alicia you just went up 3 miliHelens for saying that. That made me think of some exclusive measurements to my group of friends. The 'speed of smell' (its the speed of a very slow ski lift). The 'golb' (indefinite). A 'hunnerd' (not to be confused with a hundred). And the 'burrito' (equal to about 99 cents. it was used in high school to tell people how much money they owe you. hahaha)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I was thinking of these measurements between my friends and it made me think of exclusiveness of folk knowledge. Its interesting how our social/cultural/family group can include or exclude us from receiving certain types of knowledge. I guess that's sort of the point though, and the reason why globalization of knowledge in THIS century has very much changed our modern culture and allowed us to connect on a world-wide scale to other people.
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI think you're right about globalizing changing culture. Ok obviously it changes culture, but I mean in a knowledge transmission way. It is great that we can communicate around the world, but it all has to be recorded somehow, either written or as sound bytes or video files. And since people exchanging information have to be able to understand each other even though they come from very different cultures,it has to be simplified or different cultures assimilate parts of the other. Pessimistically, folk knowledge specific to our cultures is dying. Optimistically, we are gaining a whole new different kind of global folk knowledge
this is pretty interesting that I bet we use body/practical measurements a lot less now a days... I mean we do use thumbs/fingers width, a pinch etc. Another thing is I definitely agree that the metric system is the best!! I wonder how much practicality went into the making of our system. I mean was a tablespoon a practical measurement at some point? I don't even know what half of our measurements mean...! or maybe that is just me?
ReplyDelete