The Measure of Things

Have you faced the situation where you just cannot find the right sized wrench (or spanner as it is also known)? The 3/8" is too big, the 5/16" is too small and there is nothing in between in your tool set. You realize you have the American Standard set but the bolt you are trying to loosen is made to metric standards. Whatever happened to international standards? Okay, those of you who do not live in the US can stop rolling your eyes. I know you cannot relate to this.

Chalk it up to American Exceptionalism but I don't know if there are any countries other than the US that have not adopted the metric system. It feels archaic to be still using feet and pound, ounces and such not to talk of pints, quarts and gallon which let me point out is different from the imperial gallon. The scientific community like the rest of the world uses the metric system. The medical community prescribes dosage (cc's, milligrams, or grams) based on body weight in kilograms. But the general populace continues to use the old units and when it comes to tools, depends on conversion charts like the one in this article. Of course an adjustable wrench (or monkey spanner) works well for many applications.

Historically weights and measures along with balances have been used in India for a very long time going back to 2000 BC. Such artifacts have been discovered in Harappa and other sites of the Indus Valley Civilization. The ivory ruler found there may be the oldest such in the bronze age. There is a remarkable consistency in weights and linear measurements which indicate that they had a standardized system. If you are interested in details, just go to History of Measurement Systems in India. This page has an amazing chart of time measurement in India ranging from one ten millionth of a second to 22nd power of 10 years. 

Growing up at a time when we were in the middle of adopting the metric system, I had to learn the different units that were prevalent then and the conversion rates among them. Like in everything else, units in India differed from place to place. I have heard my grandmother mention the local currency in the Travancore kingdom where she was raised. Luckily, the currency had been standardized across the nation by the time I was born. But as part of the drive to go metric, the currency was redesigned in 1957 to use 100 naya paise (new paise) per rupee from the older 192 paise per rupee along with other coins. For a few years the old coins continued to be in circulation until they were discontinued in 1964. I remember the old coins still especially the quarter anna which was annular shaped. We did not have the British currency and did not have to deal with tuppence and muppets or whatever they use over there.

With weights and other measures, we had to deal with the traditional measures such as tola, palam, seer, vis that were used for normal articles and specialized smaller measures for precious metals as well as the British ones along with the new metric units and the conversion rates among them. Depending on what you were measuring, either the British units (feet, furlongs, miles for distance) or the indigenous measures (for liquids and for weights) were in vogue. 

While the metric system is easy to remember and use in calculations, our brains take time to adjust to the new measures. Even now we seem to be using feet and inches to denote height but for weight we seem to have moved to metric in India. Somehow to say you are 1.7 m tall seems odd. We were always trying to convert to the equivalent metric units or vice versa when transacting with shopkeepers. I think they in turn may have used the confusion to their advantage by quoting prices in as yet unfamiliar units. 

Fruits were sold by numbers and price for them was quoted per dozen. I don't think that the dozen as a measure is Indian. It was probably introduced by the British although counting by twelve may have older origins in Mesopotamia. It is convenient to count up to twelve using the phalanges of the fingers on one hand. Twelve is also divisible by two, three, four and six making calculations easy. Nowadays you will find fruits being sold by weight in most places. It always gives me pause. For example, I know how many bananas I want to buy but not how much by weight. In this context, I must mention my recent experience with Instakart where we ordered two pounds of tomatoes but ended up just two tomatoes. The app too seems to have been confused! Or was it the shopper? 

We also had (and still use) informal measures in use for some things. Flower vendors sold strands of jasmine and other flowers by arm length (muzham in Tamil). This would lead to some contention and haggling as the flowers may be strung densely or sparsely, not to mention the fact that the measure would vary from seller to seller depending on how tall or short they were. The price may very well be directly proportional to the density of flowers. This was the reason perhaps that in some places the practice is to sell jasmine strands by the count - you were quoted a price per one hundred flowers. In this case, they tended to be strung together densely. You could also buy loose flowers and string them yourself.

Standardization is obviously important in units of measurement. Informal units like the muzham may not matter much as the transactions are of low value but when dealing with land for instance they become critical. In this context, you will recall how King Bali was tricked by Lord Vishnu. Vishnu appeared as Vamana, the short one and asked for a little piece of land measured by just three paces. The moment Bali agreed to gift Him the land, He assumed His cosmic form and measured the earth and the heavens with just two paces. With no place for Him to place His foot for the third step, Bali offered the top of his head. Upon Vishnu placing His foot on his head, he was sent to the deepest nether world and is confined there even today appearing on earth only once a year during the Onam festival in Kerala. If only he had insisted on a standard measure!

World of Words

वागर्थाविवसंपृक्तौ वागर्थप्रतिपत्तये|

जगत: पितरौ वन्दे पार्वतीपरमेश्वरौ||

vaagarthaaviva samprktau vaagarthapratipattaye

jagatah.pitarau vande parvatiiparameshvarau

In the opening verse of his Raghuvamsha quoted above, the famous poet Kalidasa invokes the universal parents Goddess Parvathi and Lord Shiva whom he describes as being inseparable as a word and its meaning and asks them to bless him. He prays to them for clear understanding of words and their meanings. This verse is commonly recited by students of Sanskrit even today. A word and its meaning are indeed inseparable. When does a word come to be associated with its meaning? When was the first time someone used 'cow' to denote the animal we now know as cow? Did the word exist before that? Can a word exist without its associated meaning? Without meaning, it will not be a word but gibberish. If you think of any word, its associated meaning simultaneously flashes in your mind. 

I wonder what it is that made speech and language possible in humans. Other species communicate by sound too but none of them come anywhere near the complexity of human language. The evolution of language must have given a real impetus to the growth of civilization. It is hard even to think now without words. Our entire life is dominated by words. They are the primary means of communication and expression that we have. We have constitutions, laws, textbooks, etc. where interpreting the words is very important. This is not to ignore the vast world of literature and scriptures where there is more scope for subjective interpretation.  

Words serve to record current knowledge and pass it on. New research constantly draws upon previously established theories. All our learning is facilitated by words - spoken and written. Before printing made it possible for books to be widely available, knowledge had to be orally transmitted. In traditional schools in India, people had to first memorize a text before they were taught the meaning. In this manner, India managed to preserve the vast scriptures and other books and pass them on from generation to generation.  

Learning a language starts with gaining some basic vocabulary in that language. Although we were taught the alphabet first, at least in one's mother tongue, this starts only after we have already learned to speak it. I feel the way I was taught English stressed the written over the spoken. As a result I got to know the rules and grammar before I tried to speak English. I think starting with the spoken version would have been far more effective.

Although all books are made of words, I believe that the dictionary alone can be called a book of words. A dictionary is essential when studying a language. I remember using one to look up unfamiliar words when I was in school. We had English dictionaries at home - small and large. One of them was the extremely useful English-English-Tamil dictionary published by LIFCO. The curious thing is we only had dictionaries for English. I cannot recall ever referring to a Tamil dictionary. As we advanced in Tamil through high school, we somehow learned new words and their meanings without a dictionary. The texts would sometimes include a list of unfamiliar words with their meanings but usually the teacher explained them. It was the same when I later learned Sanskrit.

Speaking of dictionaries, I recently read the charming novel The Great Passage by Shion Miura. It is about the creation of a Japanese dictionary and follows the life of the people involved in this. Working on it changes them in many ways and in some cases provides them with insight into their own selves. But the dictionary actually does occupy a central place in the story. The whole process of making the dictionary takes fifteen years in this story. The level of details regarding the process of editing the dictionary is sure to appeal to your inner geek. 

Compiling a dictionary is a stupendous task. With the online dictionaries one cannot appreciate the scale of the thing at all. The  print version of the Oxford English Dictionary has twenty volumes and includes some 600,000 words according to its official website. Dictionaries pack a lot of information but the print must be legible and the paper must be thin to keep the volume from being too heavy and at the same time easy to turn without sticking or tearing easily. As the dictionary has a long shelf life, the paper must be durable. But all these details are secondary to the task of compiling the contents. How the editors must agonize over what to include and how to explain the meanings precisely are things we never think about. For example, if you look at the meaning of the word 'Right' (as in the direction) in the dictionary, you will see this:

"of, relating to, situated on, or being the side of the body which is away from the side on which the heart is mostly located" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right)

If a very commonplace word like 'right' has to be defined like this, you can appreciate how hard the editors have to think to come up with definitions. No wonder even Kalidasa prayed for the clear understanding of words and their meaning.

Languages grow with new words and word usage changes over time. A dictionary has to keep up with this. English has borrowed many words from other languages. For instance, the words cash, catamaran, coir and curry are all from Tamil to cite just a few examples (and just in the C's). The British spent about three centuries in India and they took many words back with them along with all the wealth. They left the English language as a legacy to Indians. And naturally, we have made it our own with unique twists and tweaks.

Indian English is actually recognized as a regional variant. I would argue that we have further variants within that! Some of the words Indians use may not pass muster grammatically ('updation' for example) but I think we have some good suggestions for inclusion as legitimate words, not just Indian English. A good example is 'prepone' as the opposite of  'postpone'. There is no equivalent in English. To say that the date has been advanced or brought forward is not only cumbersome but also not very clear. So 'prepone' fills a felt need. I was happy to see that it is on the watch list of Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/prepone)  But why on the watch list? What are they waiting for? 

English can do with more such words in my opinion. I need hardly tell you that it is a confounding language. 'Fat chance' and 'slim chance' mean almost the same thing. Actually, 'slim chance' is a little better than 'fat chance', I think. While 'awful' and 'awesome' are totally different, 'flammable' and 'inflammable' mean the same thing. Our heads are often left spinning. If Merriam-Webster knows what's good for English, they would prepone the inclusion of 'prepone'.