Mark Davis wrote:Well, a Roman mile was originally a thousand (double) paces, which depended on how long your legs were and how much of a hurry you were in. It was standardised as marginally shorter than the English mile. I guess English legs tended to be longer than Roman ones. But Swedish legs ... I know many Swedes are tall, but not that much taller than us!
awful. At least with inches, feet, and miles, the number of feet per mile don't
vary depending on which mile one is talking about!
A Danish mile is 7 km, a Swedish mile (a fairly popular distance measure here) is 10 km, and an English mile is a mere 1.6 km (approx.). So yes, the number of "feet" per mile does vary depending on which mile one is talking about (even when considering that the length of a "foot" originally depended on who's foot was used to measure). ;-)
(Sorry for being OT) /kent k
PS Originally the Swedish mile was marginally longer than 10 km, but via "nymil" (new mile) or "myriameter", the original term mile (mil) was adopted for the metric adapted distance.
Your Swedish mile sounds more like what we call a league. From Websters 1913 edition, at http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/league:
1. A measure of length or distance, varying in different countries from about 2.4 to 4.6 English statute miles of 5.280 feet each, and used (as a land measure) chiefly on the continent of Europe, and in the Spanish parts of America. The marine league of England and the United States is equal to three marine, or geographical, miles of 6080 feet each.Thank goodness that most of these measurements are obsolete!
Note: The English land league is equal to three English statute miles. The Spanish and French leagues vary in each country according to usage and the kind of measurement to which they are applied. The Dutch and German leagues contain about four geographical miles, or about 4.6 English statute miles.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
