Big Macs, Buttloads and the Banana Equivalent : Mad Measurements and their Meanings

Measurements, whether volume, distance or time, are different the world over. Due to long standing tradition or regulation and legislation such as weights and measures laws which exist to ensure a consumer is compensated fairly, many measurements are still not standardized.

The metric system is a decimal based measurement system using metres and kilograms, introduced in 1790s France and used throughout most of the world. Imperial measurements instead employ the inch and mile and are currently in use in only 3 nations – America, Burma, and Liberia.

Some measurements are amusing, metric or not. Like:

Buttload - A buttload of anything describes a very large amount. A butt is a large wooden cask which typically holds around 475 litres.

Hand - A hand is used to calculate the size of a horse, now standardized to 4 inches.

Bakers Dozen - In medieval England, 13 loaves were served due to threats of harsh penalties bakers faced should their bread delivery come in underweight. To avoid punishment, they served an additional or ‘vantage loaf’, derived from the word advantage.  

Banana Equivalent - This measures the dosage of radiation exposure when compared to ingesting naturally occurring isotypes in an average banana!  

Horsepower - Mechanical or metric, the definition varies. Originally comparing the power of draft horses to steam engine output.

Big Mac Index - Invented by The Economist in 1986, the Big Mac Index is an informal way of comparing international currency fluctuations using a staple found in over 130 countries – the Big Mac. And just like that, burgernomics was born!

Googol - Coined in 1938 when mathematician Edward Kasner quizzed an 8 year old about large numbers, the googol is represented by a 1 followed by 100 zeros and has since inspired the name of the biggest company in the world.

Fathom - Utilised to calculate depth in water, a fathom is equal to 6 feet deep. It replaced previous wildly inaccurate measurements like 'outstretched hands' and the fathom is the most widely used maritime measurement to this day.

Micromort - A unit of risk measuring the one-in-a-million chance of death, the riskiness of everyday life activities and the micro probability of demise. Example - smoking 1.4 cigarettes increases your risk of dying by one micromort! Better stub it out.    

Moment - A medieval moment lasted 90 seconds. Back then, an hour was divided into 40 moments before introduction of the 60 minute hour in 1393.

Diverse measurements is a contentious issue that costs companies time and money.

If only everything was quantified in buttloads!