It was either six tons or 5.44 tonnes
or six tonnes or 6.61 tons
(Bazongaloid, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:22, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

aren't tons bigger than tonnes?

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:25, Reply)

that's the jist of what al said, yes
:)
( mictoboy shitting in your cunt since, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:26, Reply)

the way he has written it looks like
6 tons = 5.44 tones
or 6.61 tons = 6 tonnes

which is the other way round
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:29, Reply)

No it doesn't, it looks like
6 tons = 5.44 tonnes
or 6 tonnes = 6.61 tons

Which is exactly what I wrote, but I used my words instead of numbers and equals signs.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:33, Reply)

it amounts to the same thing though, 1 tonne is larger than 1 ton
which is the opposite to what I had previously thought, which was why I was saying it looks like you'd written that
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:35, Reply)

No 1 ton = 0.901 tonnes
so a tonne is slightly more than a ton
(Bazongaloid, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:29, Reply)

well there you go

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:29, Reply)

It depends
on whether you are talking about long tons or short tons though!

1 metric tonne is equal to 1.102 short tons, but only 0.9842 long tons.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:31, Reply)

I like how both long and short tons are exactly 20 hundredweights
but it depends if you are using long or short hundredweights!
(Bazongaloid, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:34, Reply)

makes you wonder why we changed to metric
when the old way was much simpler
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:35, Reply)

In the same way
a long hundred of herrings is actually 132 herrings.

Fishermen weren't that good at counting in the old days.

Edit - according to Google, a long hundred is 120. But in my old Collins Gem dictionary, it definitely says 132.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:35, Reply)

I expect a lot of the fisherman came from the west country
and brighton
(Bazongaloid, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:39, Reply)

Apparently
in Roxburghshire, in the Scottish borders, sheep and lambs were sold by the hundred, but this was actually 106 animals.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:42, Reply)

maybe it allowed for a few dieing before they got them home

(Bazongaloid, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:43, Reply)

I was wondering about that.
Or it may have been a backhander. A hundred for the boss, and keep half a dozen for yerself, mate.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 29 Mar 2010, 9:47, Reply)