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Why Human Societies Still Use Arms, Feet, and Other Body Parts To Measure Things (science.org) 199

Posted by msmash from the whatever-works dept.
Body-based measurements may have persisted because they are convenient and offer ergonomic advantages over standardized units. From a report: Although standardized units are often upheld as superior to informal corporeal measures, people in many societies have continued to use their bodies this way well after standardization has taken root, notes Roope Kaaronen, a cognitive scientist who studies cultural evolution at the University of Helsinki. To explore how widespread such practices have been in human history, Kaaronen and colleagues pored over ethnographic data from 186 past and present cultures across the world, looking for descriptions of body-based units of measurement in a database called the Human Relations Area Files. This database is the product of an international nonprofit organization that has been collecting and administering ethnographies and anthropological literature since the 1950s.

The team found these systems used in every culture they looked at, particularly in the construction of clothes and technologies. For example, in the early 1900s, the Karelian people, a group indigenous to Northern Europe, traditionally designed skis to be a fathom plus six hand spans long. In the late 1800s the Yup'ik people from the Alaskan coast recorded building kayaks that were 2.5 fathoms long plus a cockpit, which was the length of an arm with a closed fist. Next, the team looked at a subsample of 99 cultures that, according to a widely used benchmark in anthropology, developed relatively independently of one another. Fathoms, hand spans, and cubits were the most common body-based measurements, each popping up in about 40% of these cultures. Different societies likely developed and incorporated such units because they were especially convenient for tackling important everyday tasks, the authors argue, such as measuring clothes, designing tools and weapons, and building boats and structures.
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Why Human Societies Still Use Arms, Feet, and Other Body Parts To Measure Things More

Why Human Societies Still Use Arms, Feet, and Other Body Parts To Measure Things

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  • Because you always have them on you (Score:5, Insightful)

    by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @05:13PM (#63656654) Journal

    Seriously, why does this even need to be asked? I hope no one gave these folks any money to 'answer this'.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      And that explains why one person uses the hand length and the next person uses the finger to elbow how? Seriously if you want to sound pretentious about the fact that other people are doing research about something you *think* you know about Mr Dunning-Kruger then at least address the point of the research.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >And that explains why one person uses the hand length and the next person uses the finger to elbow how?
        You seem to be under the impression that the published paper says one way or another. The point of this research is to have a formal survey of body measurement systems. Poster is correct in saying the answer is convenience. Treating this question as having much deeper meaning and significance than the obvious answer is giving the subject way too much reverence.

        • Yes. It would be much better if all researchers that came after them repeated their research efforts... Research like this is almost always preliminary to some larger effort and they published it in case others in the field might find it useful, and someone probably will. Your disregarding it out of context is beyond obtuse. Man. Rather than sit here and reading preposterously smug comments written by cantankerous neckbeards that think they can reason their way through not knowing what the fuck they're tak

      • Because it's good enough for those using the imperial measurement system.

      • And that explains why one person uses the hand length and the next person uses the finger to elbow how? Seriously if you want to sound pretentious about the fact that other people are doing research about something you *think* you know about Mr Dunning-Kruger then at least address the point of the research.

        And Slashdot uses the inference to start another round of discussions that inevitably go to metric versus Imperial.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Voyager529 ( 1363959 )

      Because you always have them on you...Seriously, why does this even need to be asked? I hope no one gave these folks any money to 'answer this'.

      As an added bonus, it seems these folks aren't familiar with the term "close enough".

      If I'm designing spacecraft, then yes, measurements to the nanometer are required. If I'm measuring firewood I intend to burn anyway, "A dozen logs, as long as your arm and wide as your fist" is perfectly acceptable. This is simply common sense, and I'll happily echo the sentiment that I hope this team didn't waste grant money to figure this out.

      I can't wait until this team asks an octogenarian from a Mediterranean region o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Regardless of where you are in the world, *nobody's* grandmother uses measuring cups.

        We're having a big family get-together. Grandma asks me to pick up a $10 pot roast at the store.

        • Regardless of where you are in the world, *nobody's* grandmother uses measuring cups.

          We're having a big family get-together. Grandma asks me to pick up a $10 pot roast at the store.

          ...Sounds like she didn't use a measuring cup there, now did she?

        • Grandma asks me to pick up a $10 [10 dollar] pot roast at the store.

          In the UK asking for a 10 pound pot roast would be even more confusing. :-)

      • Re:Because you always have them on you (Score:5, Funny)

        by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @07:24PM (#63657010)

        "A dozen logs, as long as your arm and wide as your fist."

        Pro tip: Enable Safe Search before Googling that ...

      • My grandmother taught me ad gustum for ordinary cooking, but carefully measured for baking cakes, including scraping level the tops of measuring cups and spoons. Recall also eyeball gauged modifiers "scant" and "heaping".

        • The rest of the world weighs ingredients where accuracy is needed ... so much quicker and more reliable

          But by eye is usually good enough .. which also explains why body measures are still used ...

    • It would be better to research why everyone keeps misplacing their tape measures so they canâ(TM)t be found when they need them.

      • It would be better to research why everyone keeps misplacing their tape measures so they can't be found when they need them.

        I have a friend with at least 50 25' tape measures. He can always find one around the house. He gets them free (or almost) with coupons at Harbor Freight.

    • Seriously, why does this even need to be asked? I hope no one gave these folks any money to 'answer this'.

      It needs to be asked because sometimes "obvious" questions have surprising answers and insights.

      For instance, the slightly surprising part:

      Body-based units also often result in more ergonomic designs, he notes, because items are made for the person actually using or wearing them. Kaaronen is a kayaker and woodworker who makes his own paddles—basing their length on a traditional measurement of his fathom plus his cubit. “I personally vouch for traditional paddle designs,” he says. “Th

      • There's also a chance that in primitive societies, there was a great deal more homogenization of the population.

        Given the general isolation of communities, in the absence of modern travel and cultural mixing; hands, feet, and arm lengths might've been much closer to a standardized measurement than today.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vux984 ( 928602 )

        "It might be a good idea to start keeping individual body length measurements in mind when getting individual sized gear like hockey sticks, ski poles, and cellos."

        How though? I still have to communicate those lengths to the person selling them to me, and phoning them up and saying I need it up to my shoulder plus the length of my forearm, and the width of 2 of my feet is going to accomplish nothing useful for anyone.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Long distance communication did not exist when people were using these measurements...
          Going into a physical store and asking for something up to your shoulders or the length of your arm works very well.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kmoser ( 1469707 )
            This. Also, for individualized items like clothing (and personal tools) you generally want them to be proportional to your size, so "the length of your arm" may be slightly longer or shorter than someone else's "length of your arm" but it will be right for *you*, and is a good rule of thumb (heh) for describing these types of measurements in general.
      • I don't even think it's worth trying. It's pretty hilarious how anti-intellectual the commenters on slashdot have become. What a sad husk this site is if it's former self. I think that "slashdotted" needs a new definition: when comment areas fill up with dudes who assume they're right about everything because they ignore anyone that says otherwise and don't bother checking for themselves.

    • I guess they never heard that the best measuring device you have is the one you can find.

      My arms are usually attached, so if a rough measurement is good enough, I'm not wasting time to go get a measuring tape, just to have to go put it away 3 minutes later.

    • I use the dick....

  • Y'all have been using arms and feet to measure things. Why didn't anyone tell me. Oh man, I feel so bad for those nuns now. And they had to wait over 20 minutes for me to show them it was really a 4x8 board.

  • Olympic swimming pool big

    Size of a football pitch

    Or my favourite, "acres" of code

    • A pitch is a non-constant 3D vector impulse and applies to baseball. Alternatively, it is something that is wrong at one end of the harpsichord by the time that you have tuned the other end.

    • How many have actually seen in person an Olympic size swimming pool to be able to visualise this?
      Which football ... there are at least 4 ... all with different sized pitches

      Metaphor's are not useful sizes ...

  • Next question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @05:29PM (#63656720)

    Why use Olympic swimming pools for measuring volume?

    • For the same reason as stated in the article. We rationalise problems to a scale we understand.

      How much is 5 million litres of water? Picture it in your head. Did it work? Now look up the size in Olympic swimming pools and see if you pictured it right, or if you've never seen an olympic swimming pool before look up something you have seen for confirmation. That thing you have seen is the reason you gravitate to using it as a measure.

      • That's a problem of lack of education.
        5 million liters is 5K cubic meters, that's equal to a pool 10 meters wide, 10 meters long and 50 meters deep. Feel free to switch dimensions around if it makes you feel better.
        But I couldn't, for the life of me, picture that in Olympic swimming pools, because I've never been in one, I passed a few on occasion and briefly see them on TV every now and again.

        I have no issue to compare something with ONE known, common object, when it's a direct comparison, and there's no n

        • 5 million liters is 5K cubic meters, that's equal to a pool 10 meters wide, 10 meters long and 50 meters deep. Feel free to switch dimensions around if it makes you feel better. But I couldn't, for the life of me, picture that in Olympic swimming pools, because I've never been in one, I passed a few on occasion and briefly see them on TV every now and again.

          The only rational standardization of this measurement that I've been able to embrace is that Olympic as a modifier means that pool holds a Metric Fuckton of water, a unit of measure that is roughly equivalent to 25 shitloads.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Craefter ( 71540 )

      I used it to calculate how much Corona vaccines were distributed. It has been a while since I did the calculation but at the time it ended up in 8 Olympic swimming pools of vaccine liquid world wide. Just imagine all those doctors dumping their little injections into a pool until 8 of them are full.

  • Human Societies ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pieroxy ( 222434 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @05:40PM (#63656758) Homepage

    The USA does, the rest of the world has moved on to the metric system.

    Granted, here and there there are still remains of those measurement systems, but for the most part they've been eradicated.

    • Even our barbarian units have standardized values. That's not what TFA is talking about.

      On a side note though, Fahrenheit is far superior to Celsius unless you're dealing with the precise boiling point of water more often than you're dealing with human comfort regarding air temperatures.

      • On a side note though, Fahrenheit is far superior to Celsius unless you're dealing with the precise boiling point of water more often than you're dealing with human comfort regarding air temperatures.

        Utter nonsense. For human comfort. either is appropriate. As would be Kelvin. It's just familiarity with the numbers

        • Untrue. Fahrenheit has smaller degrees so you never need to involve a decimal place. Also, zero to 100 on the scale fitting nicely with temperatures humans can function in without being extra vigilant means something in day to day life, while the boiling point of water does not.

          • What the hell? Fahrenheit is far superior to Celcius?

            Inside my place right now it is 20.3C. If it was 19.3C or 21.3C - most people would not notice the difference. Unless people who grow up in places that use Fahrenheit have somehow evolved to be far more sensitive to temperature? Either that or very occasionally using a decimal place is too complex for their brains to handle?

            Weather forecasts (and most weather reports) do not even mention decimals (with Celsius they are too insignificant to care about). Th

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by kmoser ( 1469707 )
              Weather forecasts are just estimates, and are subject to localized variation of several degrees regardless of whether you're measuring in Celsius or Fahrenheit, which makes decimals all but useless for weather forecasts since the temperature is unlikely to match exactly what was forecast.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by sconeu ( 64226 )

              Fahrenheit is asking humans how hot it feels
              Celsius is asking water how hot it feels.
              Kelvin is asking atoms how hot it feels.

          • Untrue. Fahrenheit has smaller degrees so you never need to involve a decimal place.

            If you are scared of decimal points just use decikelvin. See - the SI system can even help you with your strange phobias.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Smidge204 ( 605297 )

          > For human comfort. either is appropriate. As would be Kelvin.

          0F = Really cold
          100F = Really hot

          0C = Kinda cold?
          100C = Dead

          0K = Dead
          100K = Dead

          =Smidge=

        • If you told me it was 32 degrees, I would wear a t-shirt and shorts and subsequently die of exposure. But at least I'd die knowing that Celcius is superior.

      • Even our barbarian units have standardized values.

        That's simply not true. Some of them have standardized values, like the inch, that are pegged to SI units. Others like the pint do not because the US, unlike the entire rest of the world back in Victorian times, only have 16 fluid ounces in its pint compared to 20 in everyone else's. This leads to a US gallon only being 3.8 litres vs an Imperial gallon which is 4.5 litres.

        The French have the best name for the old unit system, referring to them as "anglo-saxon units" which actually makes them appear youn

        • The US pint is two cups or sixteen ounces from Alaska to Florida; it doesn't change from person to person. Which means it is standardized. You may quibble over the standard for a pint varying internationally but our measurements do not vary.

          • you would be surprised. E.g at gyms the lbs of weight plates can not be compared brand to brand since some US brands measure them in their actual lbs while others simply make them 20kg (to be able to sell them internationally and to have them at official competitions since that is all done in kg) but write 45lbs on them for the domestic market. Which means that you'll find 45lbs plates that are 44lbs and those that are 45lbs, it's a real mess.

        • The U.S. adopted what was then the Imperial wine (Queen Anne's) gallon of 231 cubit inches as the gallon for all liquid commodities. The UK gallon is a minor modification of what was originally the Imperial ale gallon, with the modern definition being based on the volume of 10 pounds-mass of water (with various stipulations of the exact conditions of measurement). Both systems define their pint as 1/8th of their respective gallon. A UK fluid ounce is literally one ounce-mass of water (under the same specifi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        Comfort is around 20C, pretty simple compared to figuring out what 70F is by subtracting 30 and halving the result to see it is also a comfortable temperature rather then the first thought that it is fucking hot.

      • Barbarian? Most of them come from the Romans!

    • The remains I can think of are simple size comparison for small numbers "two fingers of whisky" or "three handfuls of sand".

    • Hate to break it to you, but the meter was based on a French Imperial unit called the toise. The meter was not defined by the size of the Earth, it was defined as a rational fraction of a toise, very close to 1/2 with the intent of making it 10,000,000 meters between the north pole and the equator.

      The rest of the world may have moved onto the metric system, but in doing so, it adopted a system built on a foundation of imperial units.

      Ironically, the imperial system the US uses is now defined by the metric s

    • Maybe before you set off on your snarkmobile you might want to check that in fact, the US is officially metric.

    • The USA does, the rest of the world has moved on to the metric system.

      Granted, here and there there are still remains of those measurement systems, but for the most part they've been eradicated.

      The USA doesn't.

      The point of the study wasn't that people were using standardized systems based on body parts, but it that they were using measurements based on the body parts of the people concerned.

      If the USA did the same then all Americans would buy shoes that were about a foot long.

      These body measurements eventually became standardized for ease of use with commerce, hence the Imperial system that Americans use, but they started with people's actual limbs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by unami ( 1042872 )
      yes, although there are a very few countries who still use those sometimes bizarre measuring systems - statista says it's the U.S., Liberia and Myanmar - this seems like a very US-centric view of things.

  • Non body-based fancy units (Score:3)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @06:00PM (#63656836)
    mpg does not even have the excuse to be body-based.
  • ... units. One of my simulations books talked about this (I forget the name of the book off the top of my head. It's one of the best intro's to simulations I've ever read. I still have it but its at work). The book author was a small business owner in the maritime field. He went out of his way to standardize on the SI system. In a contract with Japanese shipbuilders, he found out that specific industry in Japan has (at least up to and as of around the 1990's) it's own specific units of measurement and it st

  • When making an item for yourself, like the kayak paddle in the article, it makes good sense to use your own body measurements as a starting point.

    I have heard of a modern harpsichord maker, who starts every instrument by defining the inch for that instrument. If I remember right, it was the width of the wide ("white") key. Everything else was derived from that with geometric methods, so the proportions of the instrument came out right.

    I have read that in the middle ages, most European cities had engraved so

  • Everyone has a foot. Few are a foot long, not even Subway's, but its close enough. A meter? A gram? Why are they so different in scale? Is it because when they started dividing by 10 they couldn't stop? mgs or mks? If the metric system was truly logical, only one of those would exist.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )

      The metric system is a purely contrived measurement system, rather than one that evolved organically through repetitive use. Non metric measurements are often very human in scale, and often feel more relatable because of it.

      But that relatability comes at a cost, which is imprecision and subjectivity. You can technically compensate for the imprecision by defining them to have specific values in a precise system such as the metric system, but because these values are not ones that most human beings can

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        A metre was based on the toise, 2 metres equaled one toise with a toise originally the distance between outstretched arms or finger tips actually and divided into 6 feet. A slightly different foot from what we're used to. They did slightly shrink the metre to try to make it one ten thousandth of the distance from the pole to the equator and redefined the toise as 2 metre Then we learned the Earth is not round.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      A metre is pretty close to a yard, the distance from your nose to the tip of your finger when your arm is stretched out or half a toise, with a toise originally the distance between your finger tips when your arms were spread out and likely the original idea was to base the metre on the toise, with 2 toise = 1 metre
      The rest of the metric system was derived from the metre.
      Imperial has some similarities, a gallon is 10lbs of water containing 160 fl oz.

    • A meter? A gram? Why are they so different in scale?

      How many meters to do gram do you think it should be?

      mgs or mks? If the metric system was truly logical, only one of those would exist.

      What's an mks? Are you arguing that it's illogical to have measurements which can be scaled over multiple orders of magnitude? Or are you arguing that it's illogical to give names to convenient multipliers?

  • Specifically, they should use their iPhone Pro Max which is exactly and reliably exactly 6.33 x 3.05 x 0.31 inches. That means you can measure any object to the closest .3 inches without any problem.

    • Iphones are not popular outside the US.
      Inches also not.
      Use a dick as a unit.

    • I'm sorry your ruler is obsolete and needs to be upgraded to another slightly different one ... will cost more than $1000 and you cannot use it outside the USA, and are unlikely to find one out side the USA ....

  • The "Rule of Thumb"
  • It's: Pointless? Useless? Inconvenient? Inaccurate? Perhaps the last one. Exact precision is often not needed. An a hand or forearm is close enough for everyone around. Kind of a false standard to be held to. Why aren't you all proper and stuff? Perfect is best. Except the tao of perfect makes it useless.

  • Think about all the people who were killed and dismembered just so that something could get measured. You can't tell me that measuring something is more important than someone having a dad.

  • "Wankers" (Score:3)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday July 04, 2023 @10:32PM (#63657368) Journal

    ...is the new unit. You can use mine as the standard. (Please no jokes about being redundant with centimeter.)

  • This is a joke, right? (Score:3)

    by networkzombie ( 921324 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2023 @01:13AM (#63657584)
    This would be the slowest documentary ever. Why not a study on why they put tags on shirts where it is the most irritating? HINT: It's the back of the neck. Or why ladies’ blouses are still buttoned on the other side? Or why people think pleather is better than leather? Better yet, why people think Trump is not a Russian plant to destroy democracy? I'm sure he will retire to Belarus if it ever comes out, although Florida is not that far off. Let's make this clear; Celsius: Kitchen, Fahrenheit: Living room. We should go metric, every inch of the way. At least I got to further this colossal waste of time. Enjoy.

  • I still don't know why the world hasn't moved on to the standardized banana scale. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes... [knowyourmeme.com]

  • In Sweden, that most rational, scientific, metricated, and modern of cultures, I was still buying bits of wood that were specified as "2x4", where the unit was "tum" - a thumb, in other words, an inch. Every other size was specified in millimeters - not this one. [Date 1982]

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