For Blaugust this year I decided to publish a series of cryptic crossword posts.
I'm aiming for one a day.
Many of our friends over the years have said that cryptic crosswords don't make sense. They certainly do play with your mind, and that is why I take delight in them. I love the surprising discovery inside a puzzle and the challenge of twisting the usual thought patterns and making them do something different.
So here is today's offering...
I'm afraid that I was born just a little too late to enjoy the conversion in Australia to metric on 14th February 1966. I still struggle with imperial measurements.
Rood =1/4 acre or 24 feet
Strictly speaking it seems to be an area of one furlong (10
Chains ) in length and and one rod wide
My dictionary explains a furlong as follows: Furlong (The furlong (220 yards or 660 feet) was the standard length of a furrow in a ploughed field ("furrow long" = furlong). It was supposedly the distance that a horse could pull a plough before needing to rest. )
An acre is a square furlong
A Chain is 66 feet or 1/10 of a furlong
A Perch is 1 square rod
Rod are also measures of length
A link =1/100th of a chain
A Pole =1/4 of a chain
There are also old measurements of mass
A Grain (gr) =1/7000 of a pound
Drachma (dr) =1/256 of a pound
Ounce (oz) =1/16th of a pound
Pound (lb) =1/14th of a stone
Stone (st)=14 pounds
Quarter (qr or qtr) =28 pounds
Hundred weight (cwt) =112 pounds
Ton (t) = 2240 pounds
And volume
Gill (gi) = 1/4 of a pint(pt)
Quart (qt) =2 pints
Gallon (gal) = 8 pints
As you can see all of these might easily be abbreviated .
A puzzle might have the term "14 pounds"in the clue. The answer might be st (for stone)
If you like to memorize information this is information which can be useful to have just sitting in your memory banks for the moment when a tricky compiler comes along and drops one of these on you.
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