Metric system in fantasy

Most of us in the UK struggle with at least a part of the metric system in real life. We have an official derogation from metrication for miles on the roads and pints of milk/ pints of beer.

If we haven't managed it yet in real life, I'd struggle with metrication in a fantasy set in the past.

The US hasn't even switched officially yet, and from the struggles my biology lab students have with moving decimal places around and remembering that it's to the left when you're converting a smaller metric unit to a larger metric unit, and to the right when you're converting a larger one to a smaller one, we won't be any time soon

Pre industrial societies tend to have colloquial types of measures, often based on everyday things like how far a horse can walk in an hour, or the size of a given body part (no giggles from the peanut gallery), so ye olde English measures slot into that context more naturally, imo.

It did occur to me that an interesting unit of fluid volume in a fantasy world would be the amount of liquid a person typically urinates per day, which is about 1500 ml, on average (of course this varies greatly with fluid intake, exercise, temperature etc.). But who would actually measure that? Maybe those folks in the Roman empire who collected urine from public urinals in order to make it into ammonia for clothes cleaning?

(and ever since I read that factoid about Roman life, I've imagined all those senators and Emperors as wearing togas that smelled faintly of urine at all times).

Roxxsmom makes a good point (as always). Civilizations seem to go in two phases as far as weights and measures are concerned.

To start with, everyone needs measures that can be easily understood and measured. The length of a man's arm. How far a horse can ride in a day. That sort of thing.

When you are working with measures like this, it is easiest to work in fractions. Half of something, a quarter, an eighth.

Eventually some bright spark invents standardisation - probably to stop all the arguments between men with different length arms. So the town hall would hold a standard yard stick and standardised weights. My county council has a display cabinet showing just such standard weights and measures going back hundreds of years.

And even today we have exactly the same principle. The French hold the standard measures by which all other measures are judged.

And when you have a standard yard stick or metre stick, it becomes possible to mark it off in tenths and hundredths, because that it easier to do maths with.

In fantasy and science fiction, I suppose it depends on how close your society is to this sort of standardisation. I can't imagine the hobbits of Hobbiton using the same weights as measures as the Orcs and Goblins. Somehow, I can't imagine the trading standards officer from the local council being able to visit both of them...

Or use imperial cos it's easier.

It gets really crazy when you realize that yes, some words have been in use for centuries, even longer: league, mile, cubits, pecks, spans, yards, barleycorns, hands and so on. But as you said, they meant different things in different times and places, or even the next city over sometimes.

In Ancient Rome, for instance, a league was 1.5 Roman miles, which is around 1.4 of our statute miles, whereas the most common league in more recent times was 3 miles. Unless you're at sea, where a league was 3 nautical miles. And a nautical mile is approximately 1.15 statute miles.

No wonder Americans can't do math!

The hobbit unit of measure for length, of course, is the Proudfoot. For orcs, it would be the "turn," which represents one crank of the wheel thingy on a Mordor standard-issue torture rack.

Once! said:

Eventually some bright spark invents standardisation - probably to stop all the arguments between men with different length arms. So the town hall would hold a standard yard stick and standardised weights. My county council has a display cabinet showing just such standard weights and measures going back hundreds of years.

And even today we have exactly the same principle. The French hold the standard measures by which all other measures are judged.

Click to expand...

Actually, these days, the French hold only one measurement standard prototype: K, the kilogram weight. Everything else has been redefined in terms of physics constants (frex, the accepted definition of "meter" is currently "The distance travelled by light in vacuum in 1/299792458 second"). I suppose we could call this the third stage of measurement derivation.

The elves would probably use the standard bowshot as a base unit of distance. The dwarves, on the other hand, might have a set of standard weights and distance measures based on prototypes, for use in those big engineering projects.

In terms of height of a character compared to everyone else - would the duck through the door/under the ceiling beams work? If you've just had another character say "how lovely and spacious"?
Or well your suit will need double the cloth?
Or feet hanging off the end of the bed in the Inn?

I still maintain that a UF set in Sydney should use metric for any actual given measurments, or a Contemporary Fantasy. It's the same as using Imperial in Boston, New York, or Miami. It is a part of the setting, adds flavor, and only makes sense to use it. A UF in Boston about a character that isn't from say AUS, but one born there will sound weird if metric is used. Conversly a native born Ausie is likely to use metric, unlike if you dumped a vacationing Bostonian in Sydney. All depends on the setting and character.

Epic and High Fantasy can get away with less definied things though. And Historical Fantasy will depend on the setting to me, what is the time/place and what measurements were used then etc.

I've mentioned it before, but the author who drives me nuts about this is Clive Cussler. In the only book of his I have read (Inca Gold), he insists of giving both imperial and metric for everything. It just feels so wrong.

To me, at least.

Once! said:

I've mentioned it before, but the author who drives me nuts about this is Clive Cussler. In the only book of his I have read (Inca Gold), he insists of giving both imperial and metric for everything. It just feels so wrong.

To me, at least.

Click to expand...

That does sound like overkill. Everything really? Ok, I just check and the novel is a choose your own adventure type deal. Maybe that has something to do with it or the writer didn't think people would get metric? Either way, it sounds frustrating. Which is why I'm a big fan of measurements fitting the setting. UF in Sidney? Metric. Epic Fantasy in a dark age world? Older methods of measure common at the time. Hist Fantasy about vampire during the American Revolution? Which ever method the patriots were using.

See? It fits. Just like Star Trek uses stardates and millitary time and light-years, or Stargate uses military time as a constant unit of measure for passage of time.

For inches, feet, and miles, you should keep in mind the fact that these are measures based on human anatomy and average pace length. Historically, an inch was roughly the width of an average man's thumb. A foot was based on the length of an average foot. In the Roman Empire, a mile was considered to be 1,000 average paces. Most of these measurements are close to the current measurements.

All of these measurements come from a long time ago. I think inch was first noted in the 7th century. Feet and miles showed up much earlier.

I don't have any issue with seeing these in secondary world fantasy. The metric system, on the other hand, is a recent invention without the anatomical basis. It would seem less fitting in secondary world fantasy.

rwm4768 said:

For inches, feet, and miles, you should keep in mind the fact that these are measures based on human anatomy and average pace length. Historically, an inch was roughly the width of an average man's thumb. A foot was based on the length of an average foot. In the Roman Empire, a mile was considered to be 1,000 average paces. Most of these measurements are close to the current measurements.

All of these measurements come from a long time ago. I think inch was first noted in the 7th century. Feet and miles showed up much earlier.

I don't have any issue with seeing these in secondary world fantasy. The metric system, on the other hand, is a recent invention without the anatomical basis. It would seem less fitting in secondary world fantasy.

Click to expand...

Why assume secondary world fantasy, or that secondary world fantasy couldn't also be far in the future or a world similar in tech level to our current one? Not everything secondary world need be a psuedo-mediviel period tech level after all, and to assume all secondary worlds are is foolish in my opinion.

Lillith1991 said:

I still maintain that a UF set in Sydney should use metric for any actual given measurments, or a Contemporary Fantasy. It's the same as using Imperial in Boston, New York, or Miami. It is a part of the setting, adds flavor, and only makes sense to use it. A UF in Boston about a character that isn't from say AUS, but one born there will sound weird if metric is used. Conversly a native born Ausie is likely to use metric, unlike if you dumped a vacationing Bostonian in Sydney. All depends on the setting and character.

Epic and High Fantasy can get away with less definied things though. And Historical Fantasy will depend on the setting to me, what is the time/place and what measurements were used then etc.

Click to expand...

Definitely. A story set in the real world should use the measures that the pov character would use. And it's not unreasonable to assume that futuristic SF settings might be using metric.

But in a made-up world, there's always the potential of knocking readers out, no matter what you choose. At one extreme lies going completely with whatever made-up units your world might use and not violating pov one whit (but your readers might be scratching their heads about what a "Nsigrain" is), while at the other end, there's the just translate into metric extreme (and the reader might be thinking, "Meters in a bronze-age level society? Right").

Most secondary world fantasy seems to take an in-between approach, though, and uses real world units that feel like they could exist in a society of the sort found in the story.

[note, if a secondary world fantasy is industrialized, then the metric system should work fine. I'm guilty of assuming a made-up fantasy world is usually pre-industrial (though not necessarily medieval European--there's a lot of history to mix and match in fantasy) because most of the ones I've encountered have been, and that's what I most enjoy writing, but of course, there's no reason why you can't have a technological fantasy world too]

Lillith1991 said:

Why assume secondary world fantasy, or that secondary world fantasy couldn't also be far in the future or a world similar in tech level to our current one? Not everything secondary world need be a psuedo-mediviel period tech level after all, and to assume all secondary worlds are is foolish in my opinion.

Click to expand...

Obviously, not all secondary worlds are pseudo-medieval, but the vast majority of them are. Recently, there's been a trend toward mixing in new eras. We'll have to see if that holds up.

Maybe it's different for people who've grown up with the metric system, but it would still feel out of place, for me, if a non-connected secondary world uses the metric system (regardless of the technological era). In a far future fantasy, that would be a great way of hinting that it is in the future.

Of course, I don't really care that much. I'd probably be a little annoyed at first, but I don't usually let nitpicky details like that deter me from enjoying a good story.

And I still prefer the idea that you're writing in translation (though one of my fantasies, which is set in the distant future, actually does use the English language).

The metre was originally based off the swing of a pendulum with a period of 1 second. Depending on how clerical your cast is, you may use the metre. If you are talking about a brown farmer, then you are going to use relative measures.

rwm4768 said:

In a far future fantasy, that would be a great way of hinting that it is in the future.

Click to expand...

In a far future fantasy, I'd find it hard to believe that any present-day system would have survived.

John Ayliff said:

In a far future fantasy, I'd find it hard to believe that any present-day system would have survived.

Click to expand...

Depends on how far in the future it is. Look at how long ago measurements like inches, feet, and miles originated. Miles, for example, originated in the Roman Empire. So we're talking more than 1500 years.

Also, most people have heard of cubits. Those date back to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Things like this can hang around longer than you'd expect.

Unless it's set in the present day, I agree go with Imperial or older measurements, with a smattering of made-up thrown in. If it's present day then obviously just use whatever is used in the location you've chosen.

You can do a lot with context to avoid having to be too precise. If the robbers say the prince's ransom is "three stone of gold" and the bishop goes pale or winces or whatever, then it's a fair bet that "three stone of gold" is "a lot". That's close enough for me.

Please don't fiddle with units of time though. Please. I used to play a SF computer game that had made-up units of time, all different lengths to ours, and when I got a mission to get from here to there in "6 smeerps and 2 demi-smeerps" or whatever it was I had absolutely no idea if it was even possible in the ship I had at the time. Painful.