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For years when we were little children, my cousin and I had an intense competition going. For some now unfathomable reason, it was of paramount importance to us to keep track of which one of us was the taller, and by how much. And so every few weeks, we would each stand very straight against a wall, have our heights marked, and then measure them elaborately with a foldable yellow ruler that was graduated in centimetres on one side, and in inches on the other. That was perhaps my earliest introduction to the vagaries of the unit systems in use around the world. Since then, I have learnt my quota of conversion formulae. An atmosphere equals 1,013 millibars; an inch equals 2.54 centimetres; a pound equals 0.4545 kilograms; and so on.
Luckily for them, writers and speakers of the English language do not seem to have had to bother with such conversions. Your modern scientist or engineer might be enchanted by the prospect of a uniform, universal unit system; not so, it appears, that unseen guiding light that decides what does or doesn’t get absorbed by a language in the form of idiomatic usage. Which is why, many decades after Robert Frost recounted Stopping by (the) Woods on a Snowy Evening, nobody, just nobody, would dream of saying:
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And kilometres to go before I sleep, And kilometres to go before I sleep.”
In India, somehow, we have internalised the kilometre as a unit of distance (although apparently it was common, a couple of generations ago, to give a person directions thus: “Go straight until you reach the hotel, then walk three furlongs to the west…”). “I have to travel 30 kilometres each day!” people routinely tell each other, and in cities lucky enough to have autorickshaws with running meters, people have a very good idea of what constitutes a kilometre.
Nevertheless, the kilometre has yet to find a place in idiomatic usage. The foot-pound-second system seems to enjoy pride of place in this respect. Home is never “kilometres away” but “miles away”; a miss, to this day, is not as good as a kilometre; and ambitious young professionals are still urged to run the “extra mile” — perhaps on the principle that running an extra 1.6 kilometres is preferable to running just one.
When I first became an office-goer, I’d tell my friends I was consuming gallons of chutney and sambar at Udipi restaurants. Idli with chutney and sambar for breakfast, dosa with chutney and sambar for dinner — and sometimes samosa with chutney at tea time. Why didn’t it occur to me to say that I had consumed “ litres and litres of chutney and sambar”?
Followers of cricket will note that though bowler speeds are routinely measured in both mph and kmph (or, fashionably, “clicks”), commentators favour the expression “an extra yard of pace”. A batsman hitting across the line skies the ball “miles in the air”, and the batsman who is run out is always “inches out of his ground”.
And so on it goes. I could, perhaps, dig up more examples, but having made my point already, there would not be a gram of wisdom in that. Ouch. An ounce of wisdom.
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(A version of this article appeared on the author’s personal blog ages ago. Years ago, rather, to use the official units.)
