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tiffany352 / rink-rs

Unit conversion tool and library written in rust
https://rinkcalc.app/about
GNU General Public License v3.0
406 stars 28 forks source link

Add `assload` and `buttload` #178

Open catap opened 1 month ago

catap commented 1 month ago

Hey,

This is nice calculator but it missed a few units: assload and buttload.

Some details can be find here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322293495_A_Bytt_of_a_Buttload_-_Origin_of_the_Word_AssloadButtload

tiffany352 commented 1 month ago

It seems that, in at least some place and point in time, people really did say "buttload" to mean enough to fill a butt. Specifically, wiktionary lists it (meaning 2) as having been used in Britain, as well as New England and Southern US. However, it's not clear to me which butt unit they're actually referring to, as there are at least 3. And that's before you even consider things like US vs British gallons.

I found this reprint of a source from 1796 which defines a buttload as 6 seams, which is slightly more than 3.5x that of a beer butt: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reprinted_Glossaries_VIII_Derbyshire_lea/Us44AQAAMAAJ?hl=pt-BR&gbpv=1&dq=buttload&pg=PA70&printsec=frontcover. There are several other sources which define it the same way.

Most other contemporary references I can find to buttload use it as a synonym of "cartload" (a full handcart) in the context of agricultural products such as wheat, not about beer casks. It seems more likely to me that they would stay within the same unit group (bushels, seams) rather than straying into an unrelated one (tuns, butts, hogsheads, etc).

I can't find any usage of the word assload that actually has a specific defined size to it. It's always used as a superlative for having a lot of something. This essay you linked is the only source I've seen so far that equates it as a synonym of buttload (and so by extension, of a butt).

The essay seems to implicitly assume that, because people switched from saying buttload to assload as a superlative, that the previous precise definition of buttload should carry over as well. I'm not convinced by this.

Other sources also list assload as referring to the amount that a donkey can carry, although I have not seen any specific number given for how much weight a donkey can carry.

My current thinking is to add these definitions:

beerbuttload  brbeetbutt
buttload      cartload
cartload      6 seam
catap commented 1 month ago

@tiffany352 thanks for detailed research!

Anyway, I'd like to point https://www.jstor.org/stable/41880098 which seems to have some quotes (I do have access only for preview) which means that assload can be used as unit of capacity.

tiffany352 commented 1 month ago

Apparently you can sign up for an account for free and read the article, but it harvests your email address. The article does say that an ass(load) is either 2.5 talents or 3.125 talents, with a talent being the Assyrian talent equal to about 30 kilograms.

However, this is not a case of the Assyrian measurement system containing a unit for asses, this is the author reverse engineering the measurement system based on a known quantity. They measured things in units like talents, not asses.

The thing I'm looking for is something like the horsepower: A horse produces variable output depending on a lot of different factors, but there are standard values that you can use, such as the US version which is exactly 550 foot pound force. No such standardization has ever happened for the carrying capacity of a donkey, so I don't think I should include it.