[Bell Historians] Waresley, Huntingdonshire

[Carl S Zimmerman]

At 08:52 +0000 2004/09/28, Richard Offen wrote:
> >
>> Scott's American: you've got to make allowances, they only ever use
>> pounds!
>
>Apologies! I meant Carl, not Scott! sorry!

No offense taken, and no apologies needed. I use my full name in 
several contexts (including all of my standard email signature 
blocks), and will answer to "Scott" almost as readily as to "Carl".

Back on topic, on Tue, 28 Sep 2004 11:49:46 +0100, Andrew Bull wrote:
>It would be better if the convention was universally adopted where a
>weight given as 11-1-0 meant that the bell in question had actually
>been weighed and was 11 cwt, 1 quarter, and 0 pounds exactly, and
>that a weight given as 11' cwt denoted an approximate or reputed
>weight.

Unfortunately, fractions don't travel well on the Internet, 
especially in email. (Web pages aren't quite as bad if they are done 
correctly.) Since the Imperial method of expressing bell weights as 
cwt-qr-lb does travel well, I suggest using a question mark or an "x" 
to indicate an approximation, thus:
11-1-? denotes an approximation to the nearest quarter, and thus 
could be anything from 11-0-15 to 11-1-14 (Do you want to round up 
or down?)
11-x-x denotes an approximation to the nearest hundredweight, and 
thus could be anything from 11-2-0 to 11-1-27 (Same question.)

What do y'all think of that? (Forget for the moment that it came 
from a colonial.) (What? Me have an inferiority complex? Never!)

-- 
=Carl Scott Zimmerman=
Voicemail: +1-314-821-8437 (home) mailto:csz_stl at s...