For Good Measure: The Ways We Say How Much, How Far, How Heavy, How Big, How Old (review)

The concept is simple enough: define various units of measure, explore a bit of their etymology, and present some very cool pictures to convey a sense of size. Although Robbins' original and stock photographs achieve the last goal in spades, some inconsistencies and gaffes hobble the first two. The text stumbles right at the introduction, with the omission of definitions of prefixes used in metric measurement (e.g., centi-, kilo-, deci-); the contentious implication that a historical Noah measured his ark in cubits; and the outright mistake in defining a centiliter as 1/1000 rather than 1/100 of a liter. The body of the text, though, is usefully organized into brief chapters on Length & Distance, Area, Weight, Liquid Measures, Dry Capacities, and Time. Measurements based on body parts—the span, hand, inch, foot, etc.—are arrestingly conveyed in graytone photographs of a male model whose poses recall (albeit more modestly) Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man," which appears on the title page. But even here one encounters annoyances, such as a superimposed diagram that shows a yard as measured from nose to middle finger, not thumb as indicated in the text. There's plenty of cool stuff for know-it-alls to revel in—the linguistic relationship between an ounce and an inch, the basis for the gem weight "carat" in a carob seed, the British use of "stone" for human weight, the precise meaning of a "drop" in cooking. Given these goodies, many readers will want more, and not all entries discuss word derivations. Without doubt, though, this attractive title will make itself useful in a classroom, and hopefully students will be intrigued enough to dig a little deeper.