for property could you please tell me what is a link? what measurement and what does it relate to
Thanks Glorianne

Dear Glorianne,

A link is one-hundredth of the distance of a chain.

A chain is 66 feet, 22 yards, 792 inches, or the precise length of a cricket pitch (wicket to wicket).

So a 'link' is 7.92 inches.

There are 25 links in a rod, pole, or perch, which is 16 1/2 feet. Many British allotments are still parcelled up into 'rods'.

You may like to know that 10 square chains make an acre.

Also 80 chains make exactly one mile.

So there are 8,000 'links' in a mile.

Metre, you are the weakest link, goodbye!

"So a 'link' is 7.92 inches."

For the non-Luddites among us: a link is 20 centimetres.

sorry about the cumbersome, complex explanation of what the long-forgotten "link" is, Glorianne. It makes sense obviously to the "stone age" bwma people. Thankfully in Britain we are now catching up with the planet and have the easier to use and remember Metric System. 100 mm is 1 cm 100 cm is 1 metre 1000 m is 1 km. Entire system takes about 20 minutes to learn and memorise saving you and your children hours of inconvenience and the likelihood of dangerous or costly mistakes. ( Especially if you are dealing with Americans who use a slightly different version of the "stone age" measures- quite deadly in this day and age where you can see we all intercommunicate on a planet as opposed to a little island Kingdom and its colonies, which abandoned imperial nonsense themselves decades ago). No wonder they laugh at the thought of the Olympics here- ludicrous.

thanks Tony Bennet to show (to a non imperial user as I am living in a metric country) how simple the imperial system is.

A link is an old "evolved out" measure of the imperial system. For lengths the only ones used (for years now) are inches, feet, yards and miles which are taught at school in the UK because they are very very popular in the UK (and the US also). Metric is taught as the primary measurement unit of science.

I presume that the original question was meant as a fact finding question by an intrigued person with an interest in old units and didn't really need the "looking down the nose" attitude of "Anonymous" who sounds somewhat horribly familiar from her tone of message!

SteveH wrote

<<
For lengths the only ones used (for years now) are inches, feet, yards and miles which are taught at school in the UK
>>

They are also the only Imperial units of length that are mandated by the EU and then only for use on road signs.

"They are also the only Imperial units of length that are mandated by the EU and then only for use on road signs."

Oh! So it was the EU that stopped me using perches, rods, leagues and fathoms as a kid!

Well I go to the foot of my stairs!

(ROTFL)

(BTW: My car still does 8 perches to the hogshead and that's the way it's staying!)

>>>> 100 mm is 1 cm 100 cm is 1 metre 1000 m is 1 km. Entire system takes about 20 minutes to learn and memorise

But what if you want to use metric for practical purposes, as opposed to just admiring it on paper?

"to just admiring it on paper"
this time I agree whith you because I get on BWMA site just because I am inteested in old measure of the world and internet is full of surprises, the book "for good measure" is excellent on this suject, but I will never go back to a Babylonian tower of old measures.

re (Eddie): "if you are dealing with Americans who use a slightly different version of the "stone age" measures - quite deadly in this day and age where you can see we all intercommunicate..."

REPLY: Strange, is it not, that the American economy leads the world? How do they do it, those Americans, using those 'stone age' measures?

Tony: "REPLY: Strange, is it not, that the American economy leads the world? How do they do it, those Americans, using those 'stone age' measures?"

They are united, Tony, and have a huge, huge, huge domestic market.
That's exactly why the EU is absolutely necessary. The only way Britain can grow economically, politically, militarily, socially,... is through the EU. If we would leave the Union, I guarantee you we will be back before the end of this century simply because we NEED TO.

I case you haven't noticed yet: we are evolving towards a world with 6 or 7 super powers without small countries (such as Luxemburg, or even the UK. Yeah Tony, even our lovely country is getting smaller every day as a consequence of a thing called "globalisation")

If Britain is getting smaller due to globalisation, what is happening to the size of all other countries?

re (Conrad): "Yeah Tony, even our lovely country is getting smaller every day as a consequence of a thing called "globalisation")"

FACTS:

1. Since 1980, net immigration into the U.K. has been running at around 250,000 a year; the total population of the United Kingdom is now over 60 million

2. Last year, thanks to our having managed (just) to avoid being entrapped in the euro, Britain rose from the 5th largest to the 4th largest economy in the world

3. The U.K. is the second largest investor overseas after the United States.

P.S. A working definition of 'globalisation': "A process by which the nation-states of the world are continually shedding their powers and authority to supranational institutions like the U.N., the W.T.O., the International Criminal Court and the European Union"

re (Anonymous): "Sorry about the cumbersome, complex explanation of what the long-forgotten "link" is, Glorianne. It makes sense obviously to the "stone age" bwma people..."

REPLY: Once again, the sheer poverty of metric language is revealed.

For dimensions and distances, in the British system of weights and measures we have:

inches (in everyday use for many purposes)
hands or handbreadths (in everyday use for height of horses)
links
spans
feet (in everyday use for many purposes)
yards (in everyday use for distance)
rods (still used on most allotments)
furlongs (still used in horse racing)
miles (in everyday use for distances).

Against this, the poverty of just having the kilometre, metre and centimetre is obvious.

I conclude that the metric system is linguistically challenged

You Imperial fans should get your act together.

We have Eddie up there praising the Imperial 'system' for its simplicity.

And then we have Tony Bennett criticising metric for its "poverty" of units.

Which way do you want it, variety or simplicity?

I'm not bothered - I just "use" it

Simplicity and variety go hand in hand - more units to choose from means that users are more likely to get a suitable unit - therefore, usage becomes simpler.

I still await an answer to my question: if globalisation is making Britain smaller, what is happening to the size of all other countries?

re: "P.S. A working definition of 'globalisation': "A process by which the nation-states of the world are continually shedding their powers and authority to supranational institutions like the U.N., the W.T.O., the International Criminal Court and the European Union""

Of course, John Lennon put it more simply:

"Imagine there's no countries..."

BWMA: "I still await an answer to my question: if globalisation is making Britain smaller, what is happening to the size of all other countries?"

They are getting smaller too, of course !
That's exactly my point: *IN THE LONG TERM* we simply CANNOT compete any longer with huge countries such as the US (and within 20 years China and India). That's exactly why we have to unite.

I know that in the end the EU is to become the United States of Europe, but WE ALL will benefit from it.

re (Conrad): "They are getting smaller too, of course! That's exactly my point: *IN THE LONG TERM* we simply CANNOT compete any longer with huge countries such as the US (and within 20 years China and India). That's exactly why we have to unite. I know that in the end the EU is to become the United States of Europe, but WE ALL will benefit from it".

REPLY:

(1) If the United Kingdom, Germany, France etc. are all becoming 'smaller', what is becoming bigger?

(2) re: "WE ALL [your emphasis] will benefit from it", is Germany, with its near 5 million unemployed, benefiting from being in the E.U. and having adopted the euro? It's tied to a euro interest rate it doesn't want, and can't make its own economic decisions any more.

(3) A country will be prosperous not if it is part of a multinational bloc, but if it has these attributes:

* a hard-working peeple
* encouragement to invent and innovate
* a tax and regulation regime that doesn't inhibit entrepreneurs
* freedom to speak, think and act without state interference.

Those are the kinds of conditions which exist in the the United States, which is why it has succeeded economically. That's also why small countries like Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are doing much better economically than countries in the E.U., and partly explain why Britain's economy has done so much better than eurozone countries in the past three years.

(4) The experience of previous multinational blocs - the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia to name two recent examples - does not suggest that a Euro-State will succeed in benefiting its citizens.

(5) A street of 20 separate houses and gardens, each with its garden fence, will be a happier place than a mansion with 20 families all living in it

On reading this message for the first time I have to say that Tony's first reply leaves me more convinced of the merits of the metric system than ever before.

Then of course we had another admission from SteveH that the link has 'evolved out'.

Some claim that it is impossible for units that lots of people use to evolve out, but it does happen when something else takes the place of the older unit.

>>> "IN THE LONG TERM* we simply CANNOT compete any longer with huge countries such as the US (and within 20 years China and India). That's exactly why we have to unite".

And why not? Which countries are the more successful or prosperous:

Hong Kong or China?
Switzerland or Russia?
Singapore or Malyasia?
Japan or India?
New Zealand or Brazil?

There is no economic rule that makes big richer.

<<
thanks Tony Bennet to show (to a non imperial user as I am living in a metric country) how simple the imperial system is.
>>

What country are you from Eddie?

re: "Thanks Tony Bennett to show (to a non Imperial user as I am living in a metric country) how simple the Imperial system is".

It's a pleasure. The elegant simplicity and beauty of our system of measurements probably explains why the Industrial Revolution and all the fantastic engineering and technological achievements that accompanied it took place in England, while the French were preoccupied with killing off hundreds of thousands of their upper classes and with promulgating an inaccurate new system of measurements based on false observations of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole via the Ile de France.

It may also have a bearing on why the United States is so far ahead of the rest of the world today

Mr Bennett,

If you believe that then you are a bigger fool than even I imagined.

Heck that reminds me!

I must get a new pot and kettle.

For both have become ashen in their age.....

I bet some of the less-extremist pro-imperial posters cringed at Mr Bennett's last post!

I have been enjoying the debate on these boards, and respect some of the pro-imperial arguments, but you've lost any credibility you had with that one, I'm afraid!

You will learn to understand the Humour and Wit of Mr B.

It's really quite good.

So you agree with us then.

Hence your excusing him as you do.

I wonder if Mr Bennett realises how much you worship him.

I have never met the man.

The closest I've got to "worship" is total admiration - and that prize goes to Margaret Thatcher.

And although I despise his politics I also admire Anthony Wedgewood Benn