Pints and pounds

In America they have a saying, which apparently gets drummed into kids at school, that "a pint's a pound the whole world round."

It's catchy and memorable and even though it's patently false.  It is roughly true that a US pint of water (the pint is from the US, it doesn't matter where the water comes from) weighs almost exactly one US pound.

Where it really falls over, of course, is the "whole world round" part, because the definition stops at the border.  The imperial system once used in New Zealand (and around the Commonwealth) defines the pound the same, but the pint is about a quarter as large again as its US cousin - much to the delight of beer drinkers who dwell outside the US border.

Not that it matters in most cases, because most of the rest of the world has converted to metric, and as a child of the metric system I've hitherto had little to do with pints and pounds anyway.  I did have to memorise that an inch is 25.4mm so that I could use the old lathes in the metalwork room at high school, and I'm aware that glass milk bottles (if they still exist) are about a pint and butter comes in blocks close to a pound, but that's about the extent of my acquaintance.

This is a good thing, because otherwise I'd be in a much greater state of confusion than I am.  If I already had a feeling for pints I'd have to unlearn everything I already knew.  It's bad enough just learning what I don't know about all these measurements.

One nice thing about the US pint is that it's equal to two cups, which are close enough to metric cups that it doesn't matter in recipes.  And two pints makes a quart which in the US system is just a little less than a litre, which also makes things easier.  I'm gradually getting the hang of it.  A few more years and my measurement skills may even measure up themselves.