Word: pennyweight
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Dates: during 1962-1962
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...variety of dry and liquid measurements, ranging from drachms, grains and scruples to tuns, hogsheads and chaldrons. Port is measured in pipes (105 gals.), people in stones (14 Ibs.), pickled peppers in pecks (554.84 cu. in.). For good measure, Britain's hundredweight is 112 Ibs., not 100; the pennyweight has been unrelated to the weight of any penny for a century and a half, but equals one-twentieth of an ounce. Both ounces and quarts have entirely different values in different tables, and pounds can consist either of 12 oz. (troy) or 16 oz. (avoirdupois), not to mention...
...school textbooks, known as rod, pole or perch, a 5 ½yd. unit based originally on the combined length of the left feet of 16 men. The government also lengthens the yard* and lightens the pound to conform to international standards, and in five years it will also abolish pennyweight, scruple and drachm...
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