Quote:
Originally Posted by kiramira
So if using Stones as a measure of weight involves a huge amount of calculation, why not just stick to pounds? Or is the use of a "stone" a cultural thing?
It doesn't involve a huge amount of calculation to weigh in scales and pounds, it just depends what you're weighing with. Analogue bathroom scales in the UK measure in stones, with markers dividing each stone up into pounds. This is what my scales are like (
picture) - I need to do an extra calculation to work it out in pounds. I have some less accurate digital scales too, which are set to display in stones and pounds (but I believe they can also do just pounds or kilos, so it's not a problem here).
A stone is to a pound just as a pound is to ounces, or kilograms are to grammes, or feet are to inches. I'm 5'7" tall, I wouldn't say 67 inches. I wouldn't say 12 eggs, I'd say a dozen. I wouldn't add 16oz of sugar to my pan if I was making jam, I'd add a pound. If we're using the metric system, I wouldn't say my car weighs about 1,500 kilos, I'd say it weighs about 1 1/2 tonnes. Lots of examples there, but the way I see it is that when you weigh a human, using stones and pounds just means that you are using the appropriate size unit of measurement for what you're weighing.