Talk:Grain (unit)

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Confusion around weights of physical grains

64 wheat grains were set to weigh as much as 45 (barley) grains, when used as a unit. That makes one wheat grain 92.158449…7 mg by modern conventions.

The math doesn't work out. If 64 wheat grains is equal in weight to 45 barley grains, then the wheat grain would weigh less than the barley grain. Either the weight of the wheat grain is wrong, or the ratio is wrong (perhaps it should be 45 wheat grains to 64 barley?). I don't know which is correct, so I can't fix it. Nik42 21:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Different meanings of "grain". I'll disambiguate. Gene Nygaard 11:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As the previous version was immensely confusing (I was confused myself) I repaired it with the knowledge I gained after sifting through several coin-related sites. The real barley and wheat grains are currently in the range of metric grain, i. e. 50 mg, and at the time of establishment of grain-based standard weighed even less - ca. 45 mg. There are almost no variety of grain (except for some experimental hybrids) that would demonstrate such high weight as 64,8 mg, so it is SURELY not the real barley grain that is referred to here. 78.60.54.188 (talk)

Something seems to be wrong. I have verified that the "1000 kernel weight" of modern barley is in fact typically in the range 30-45 g. It seems that the barley kernel is what we mean by the grain here. (Or does obtaining the kernel involve some non-trivial peeling process?) So apparently average barley grain masses are 30-45 mg. Similarly, average wheat grain masses are 30-40 mg.

This does not seem to fit with the conventional wisdom of historians that 4 wheat grains or 3 barley grains make a carat or siliqua, i.e. about 190 mg. So what's wrong? My guess is that mediaeval grains were even smaller, but that the largest grains of an ear (which is what we are directed to consider) are considerably heavier than the average. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:29, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • There have been hundreds of years of selective breeding since then. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 02:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So what did they select? My guess is that the farmers were interested in large average size of the kernel, and in relatively uniform kernels. The maximal kernel size within an ear could theoretically even have gone down, although I doubt it. What I would like to know is: What's the typical weight of the largest kernel in modern two-row barley? (The analogous questions for wheat are interesting as well.) --Hans Adler (talk) 10:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Beyond selecting for yield per unit area of land planted, I don't know. But if one selected for ease of threshing, for example, it might change the grain size inadvertently (this is called pleiotropy). I'll look into this a bit. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 07:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The expression "32 grains of wheat, taken from the middle of the ear" is a ritual formula going back to the Romans, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Sumerians. It occurs in law codes going back to the bronze age. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with actual grains of wheat. Same for the barleycorn, which is what the English troy, avoirdupois and apothecary systems are based on. For the last three or four thousand years, wheat grains and barleycorns have been hypothetical subdivisions of hunks of metal. The hunks of metal are called standard reference weights. Sometimes they used blobs of glass, as in ancient Egypt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zyxwv99 (talk • contribs) 23:20, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that this is just an old ritual formula is the conclusion to which I have come myself. Unfortunately there are some formally reliable sources which claim otherwise, so if they are wrong it would be great to have more accurate reliable sources. Can you provide any? Hans Adler 12:29, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just added another source. Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Paris grain?

According to

Philip Grierson. 1965. Two Byzantine Coin Hoards of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries at Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 19: 207-228.
"... the Roman tremissis of 1.5 g accorded ill with the Germanic weight systems based upon the grain, whether the barleycorn—the later Troy grain—of 0.064 g or the lighter wheat grain of about 0.050 g."
and then continues in a footnote:
"The weight to be assigned in the early Middle Ages to the wheat grain as a metric unit is uncertain and no doubt varied from place to place, but it was about this figure. The generally accepted proportion between the barleycorn and the wheat grain of 4:3 would put it at 0.048 g, which was in fact the weight of the latter grain in the Low Countries, but the Paris grain, which was equally based on the wheat grain, was slightly higher (0.052 g)." Phlegm Rooster (talk) 08:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, something like 50 mg for wheat and 64 mg for barley are the generally accepted numbers among historians, or have been until recently. (I don't have much experience with researching historical publications.) But it is important to keep in mind that the "grain" as a unit of measurement was really just that. Actual weight pieces for such small weights were probably pieces of metal or carefully selected grains of the right weight. So there is a lot of leeway because of natural variability (see carat (mass) for sources on the analogous problem for carob seeds), the only question being whether it's enough to be plausible. I have found one paper where a historian (more than a hundred years ago) had made an experiment. He weighed the two kinds of grain from the same field and got the 4:3 proportion stated in ancient texts. But he said nothing at all about the absolute weights.

I think it's very unlikely that the heavier grain unit in Paris had anything to do with biology. Very likely they had some reason to choose a new standard weight that was slightly heavier than usual and decided to divide it in the way that they were used to. Apparently the normal method in such a case was to adapt the number of ounces in a pound and the number of grains in an ounce until you got away with the grain weight that everybody else used. If there was no nice solution, i.e. no solution that avoided factors of 7, 11, 13, ..., then it would have been logical to make an exception. Or it could just have been the whim of some king. Even without any physical grains to match the grain weights, the main problem would have been loss of compatibility with other weights. --Hans Adler (talk) 09:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • These measures had to be accessible to the ordinary people, who needed to be sure they weren't getting ripped off. Therefore it is much more likely that they were using the actual grains whenever calibrating scales, not small pieces of metal. Why else would they specify "from the middle of the ear" all the time? The heavier grain in Paris had something to do with that wheat being heavier, but my source did not say how that could be. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 09:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But that really depends on what the weights with the heavier grain were actually used for. There were lots of local standards, perhaps precisely because the average grain weight depended on the region. But here we are talking about influential standards that were actually used in minting money. Of course one could argue that this was such a local standard, one that somehow became more important. (And then of course it doesn't seem very likely that they actually counted 5000-10000 grains "from the middle of an ear" to find out how much a pound is.) In the past some very strange claims were made, such as "the king's foot" being the actual length of the king's foot and changing with every new ruler. I haven't researched this (I am just interested in weights right now, although this may change), but I guess that this has been rejected later. Sometimes a "foot" was considerably more or less than the average length of actual feet, and I see no reason why it shouldn't have been the same with weight units. For standardised weights such as the Roman pound (which remained constant over many centuries and was used all over Europe) and their subdivisions, that is. --Hans Adler (talk) 10:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pehaps, but counting 24 grains to get a pennyweight, and multiplying that by 20 to get an ounce (480 grains) and again by 12 to get a troy pound (5760) is not all that unbelievable. And if gold was on the line, counting to 480 isn't really a big deal. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you able to access the scientific/historical literature online (are you at a university campus)? I'm looking at articles written in the 1700/1800s, which say very interesting things. I think that older sources are better. Historians in Victorian and later periods had a very anti-middle ages bias, and basically assumed that scholars in the middle ages were idiots. So they tended to make stuff up, which of course is bad for us. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 16:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right now the answer is no, because I am at home. But when I did some research from work I could access about 2/3 of the history oriented papers that I was interested in, and I think all of the really old ones. So if you give me a list of papers that you think might be interesting, or suggest some search terms, I will have a look. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, and keep in mind that I am a biologist, not a scholar of this field, so I am not wedded to a particular belief system, except to say that there are many possible sides to this story, and I am skeptical that the answer is fully known. For example, in Simpson, A. D. C and Connor, R. D, 2004. The Mass of the English Troy Pound in the Eighteenth Century. Annals of Science 61 (3): 321-349, page 329:
"From English usage and from Pegolotti’s account, we know that the ratio of the size of the English troy ounce (or the Bruges silver ounce) to the English tower ounce (or Cologne ounce) is 16:15, the ratio of Paris ounce to the Cologne ounce is 21:20, and the ratio of the eight-ounce Paris and Bruges gold mark to the six-ounce Bruges silver mark is 21:16.35 If these ratios are precise (and it is part of our purpose here to demonstrate that this is so) then, in terms of English troy grains, the Paris ounce is accurately 472.5 grains, and the tower or Cologne ounce is 450 grains, where the English troy ounce at 480 grains defines the troy grain."
So the historical debate is ongoing, and the best course of action for us at Wikipedia is to just report on that, never losing track of the current definition (people pack explosives based in it). Phlegm Rooster (talk) 17:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The same source goes on to find that the troy pound varied from 6998 to 7004 grains over the years. Worth reading, in any case. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 17:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the pointer, I don't know how I could miss that! Now I have also read the relevant chapters of "Weights and Measures in Scotland", by the same authors. The paper is really just about a detail that didn't fit into the book because it wasn't really connected to Scotland. The book itself had to explain why the well-known old definition of the pound (the Tower pound, to be exact), which exists in parallel versions both in England and in Scotland, talks about 32 wheat grains, when the real subdivision was into 24 barley grains. An old English version says: "... so that an English Penny, which is called the Sterling, round without clipping, shall weigh Thirty-two Grains of Wheat dry in the midst of the Ear; Twenty-pence make an Ounce;...". The version of the Scottish king has only survived indirectly in a later text that was adapted to a new standard: "King David ordained that the sterling should weigh 32 corns of good and round wheat... The ounce in King David's time contained 20 good and sufficient sterling pennies...".

They explain this as follows: "The wheat corn, the barley corn, and the carob seed have conventional weights assigned to them in metrology – four wheat corns are understood to weigh the same as three barley corns and both are equivalent to one carob seed[...] Experiment has shown that the relative weights of large wheat and barley corns are remarkably well described by the conventional 3:4 weight ratio, but both wheat and barley corns are very hygroscopic and their actual weights are variable and highly dependent on moisture content. [...] As for the Tractatus statement that the penny weighed 32 wheat grains, Grierson notes that this 'was indeed never valid for England but was an expression of truth for the Carolingian penny'." They argue that this part is not to be understood literally, but expresses the fact that this is based on an earlier French standard, by just copying the definition of that standard, or something like that. There seems to be more on this in the older book by Connor ("Weights and measures of England"), which I haven't got hold of yet. Perhaps that book can convince me that the 3:4 ratio really makes sense; and perhaps Grierson ("Money and coinage under Charlemagne", in "Karl der Große: Lebenswerk und Nachleben", 1965-8) can convince me that the magnitude is approximately right (if I have access to that). --Hans Adler (talk) 13:16, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So do you see any need to change the article? Phlegm Rooster (talk) 18:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. It contains incorrect (and unsourced) information; and it is generally a big mess, mixing US-centric and international, modern and historic viewpoints. I will try to disentangle this. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC) OK, I have done it. I moved the diamonds stuff up into the lede, but I have gone to some lengths to make the milligramme value of the troy grain much more prominent and hide that of the metric grain. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any evidence for use of Tower grain

Article mentions a Tower grain, but was this actually used (eg before 1527) or is it a modern supposition ? Rod57 (talk) 02:49, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes.Zyxwv99 (talk) 02:21, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That is to say, it was definitely used before 1527 and is not a modern supposition. For example, Fleta (c. 1290) says, Sterlingus...qui debet ponderare xxxij. grana frumenti mediocra. This is a description of the silver penny in terms of grains. The whole weight system for silver coinage was named "Tower" because the London mint was located on Tower Hill. Zyxwv99 (talk) 03:15, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
However, I'm finding sources that say there was no Tower grain in the Anglo-Saxon period. Apparently the wheat grain is a distinctly non-English unit and may have been introduced by Henry of Anjou. Zyxwv99 (talk) 17:27, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, thanks. Henry of Anjou ? You mean Henry III of France, "Duke of Anjou from 1551 to his death in 1589" ? - Rod57 (talk) 16:45, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

F. G. Skinner. "Weights and Measures"

The English 'tower' and 'troy' systems come on the back of arabic coins and weights. [p86]

The arab system was a rotl (pound) of 12 wukiyeh (ounces), each of 10 dirhems, each divides into 16 kirats. The kirat is equal to 3 hebbeh (barley grains), or 4 kambeh (wheat grains). There are two systems, a silver system, with the dirhem at 45 grains troy, and a gold system, with the dirhem at 48 grains.

The tower system is based on the silver system, with the grain set to the silver kambeh. The system called 'troy', is based on the gold system, the grain set to the gold hebbeh. The other units stand in the same proportion: a pound, of 12 ounces or 20 shillings, or 240 pennyweights, being equal to 120 dirhems as above.

In practice, the notion that the ratio of the barley and wheat grains is 4:3, comes from the ancient greeks, and is kept in these systems. In practice, the ratio of barley to wheat is 16:15. Wheat grains are 0.75(2) troy grains, barley is 0.80(3) troy grains, the error is plus-or-minus in the last digit. Grain weights given in Skinner [p29] and modern "grain weights" of 100 or 1000 grains, give the weights given here.

The ratio of 64/45 is equal to 16/15, and 4/3, ie the ratio of a gold hebbeh to a silver kambeh, compounds the classical greek error of 4/3, with the arabic gold/silver ratio of 16/15. Wendy.krieger (talk) 09:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

64/45 = 1.4222...
16/15 = 1.0666...
4/3 = 1.333...
Zyxwv99 (talk) 12:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, 64/45 = 16/15 * 4/3. The inference is that the carat was 3 barley corns, or 4 wheat corns, and then there was a second division, where 16 tower units = 15 troy units. Both of these stem back to arabic derivation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wendy.krieger (talk • contribs) 09:55, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

References for Usage in North America section

The Usage in North America section (now called Current usage, see below) only has two citations, and they only cover minor points in the section.

On top of it, I assume the IPSC Canada ref it being used as a source for the last part of the sentence — "bullets are measured in increments of one grain, gunpowder in increments of 0.1 grains" — but the source doesn't say this at all. It uses grains as a unit for bullet mass in one section, but doesn't say they are measured in increments of one grain, nor that the unit is standard or common. It doesn't mention gunpowder anywhere at all. I have tagged it with {{Failed verification}}.

The only sentence in the entire section with a valid source is the last one — "Grains are used to measure the amount of moisture per cubic foot of air, a measure of absolute humidity." The sentence preceding it may appear to be verified by the source given for the last sentence, as sometimes entire paragraphs have a single reference at the end, but this is not the case.

I don't think the material needs removing. Most of it is probably correct. It just needs citations. I have tagged it with {{Refimprove|section}}, and will try to add some reliable sources for the information when I have time. Any help from other editors would be appreciated.
TimofKingsland (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In adding citations for this section, I've removed the mentions of gold foil and fencing. A search for gold foil on the internet reveals it is not commonly sold in grains, and without a reference, this shouldn't be here. I couldn't find any reference to the use of grains in fencing weight measurement either. The US Fencing Association uses grams throughout their rules, and don't mention grains as unit of weight anywhere. TimofKingsland (talk) 08:23, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've renamed the section to Current usage. Grains for bullet weight, archery, etc. are used worldwide. Current usage is more appropriate. TimofKingsland (talk) 09:14, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've rewritten a lot of the material in the section, and added a lot of refs. Everything is referenced now, so I've removed the {{Refimprove}} tag. TimofKingsland (talk) 17:12, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to Zyxwv99 for the sources on dentistry gold foil. I've reworded the sentence from:
 Gold foil used in dentistry is measured in grains, but not the much thinner gold leaf used in the decorative arts.[13][14]
to:
 In dentistry, gold foil, used as a material to restore teeth,[13] is measured in grains.[14][15] [new source added]
None of the sources given mention the much thinner gold leaf used in the decorative arts, they only refer to gold foil used in dentistry. While a look around the internet shows that gold leaf isn't often sold in grains (if at all), that's just my original research. "Verifiability, and not truth, is one of the fundamental requirements for inclusion in Wikipedia". It would be good to find a reliable source saying that gold leaf is commonly sold in some unit (or not in grains). But without a source, I don't see any need to mention decorative golf leaf in the grain article at all. TimofKingsland (talk) 07:08, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Offa's decrees

Someone recently added to the history section "...re-iterating decrees that go back as far as King Offa (eighth century)." The problem is with the word "decree." Even though it is generally accepted that the Tower weight system probably goes back to Offa, King of Mercia, the evidence is circumstantial and largely archaeological. The reference is to page 11 of Zupko's British Weights and Measures, which says nothing about decrees. Zyxwv99 (talk) 02:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The sterling penny was issued in the currency reforms of King Offa, there are even silver pennies bearing his name. These silver pennies were based on the silver-weight standard of Cairo, from whence much of the silver currency came to europe. The silver dirhem of 45 BI grains, divides to 2 pennies, 16 carats, 48 barley-corns, or 64 wheat-corns. This is the basis of a number of different pounds in europe, as the moslem technology passed the european in the wake of the dark ages.
Coin weight is pretty much bullion weight. The silver penny, a struck peice, replaced the sceatta, a grain of gold, by weight. The penny was thus called sterling, because of the star thereon, and the silver of fineness 11 oz, 2 dwt is called sterling because that's what sterlings are made of. The coin had considerable importance on the continent as well, since this word came to mean both the fineness and the weight of the sterling penny. No higher coins (like shilling) are struck. Instead, these are measures of account, probably a different weight system. The definition of the mercantile pound as 25 shillings (by weight), tells us this.
A decree of some form would be needed to establish the coinage. One ought suppose it existed in some form for the coins to be struck, and the weights to be set. The re-iteration is mentioned in Watson (British Weights and Measures), it is certianly known that King William I and the norman besit did not change the laws that they found, and so the tower-system was in use in england before the besit.
Wendy.krieger (talk) 09:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No one here is disputing that the Tower weight system goes back to Offa, King of Mercia. Although some scholars might qualify that with "probably" or "almost certainly," there is enough of a consensus that I am not going to quibble over that.
There is also no question that Offa's first coins of his second coinage reform were counterstruck with the words "Offa Rex" on 1/2 dirham coins of 22 1/2 BI grains (32 wheat grains) and that the Tower weight system is based on an Arabic weight system. And yes, we all know about coin weight being bullion weight (in principle if not always in practice) and about Sceattas. No one is disputing any of that.
Your digression on William the Conqueror's coinage is an unwelcome complication. As R D Connor points out in English Weights and Measures, the weight of English silver pennies fluctuated wildly over the centuries, but was on several occasions restored to what it had been in Offa's day, notably in the third year of the reign of William the Conqueror. The Normans were famous not only for conquering countries but for governing them effectively, in large part by preserving existing institutions including weights and measures. Where they found institutions debased and corrupt, they restored them to their former glory. English monetary weights and coinage in the immediate pre-conquest period were severely debased, so William had them restored. However, his silver pennies were not of the same purity as Offa's; William's were .925 or 37/40 (a degree of purity that would later come to be known as "sterling") while Offa's were typically .96. Furthermore, the origin of the word "sterling" is disputed (see etymology section in Sterling article).
You say "The re-iteration is mentioned in Watson (British Weights and Measures)" but the reference is to page 11 of Zupko's British Weights and Measures which says nothing about decrees, reiterated or otherwise. Furthermore, I can find no mention of "Offa," "decree," or "reiterate" in Watson's British Weights and Measures. I have looked here and here. Here are all of the items listed in the index of Watson's British Weights and Measures under "O": * Ordeal, * Ordinances of uncertain date, * Ordnance survey maps, * Ore, * Ounce. (Watson's booklet is very short.)
And finally, you say, "A decree of some form would be needed to establish the coinage. One ought suppose it existed in some form for the coins to be struck, and the weights to be set." I am not enough of a legal historian to know what the word "decree" would have meant in pre-Conquest England. However, from having read extensively about the history of English weights and measures, I am under the impression that it was done either through Acts of Parliament (in the case of major reforms) or Orders in Council (working out the details) from about the mid-14th century. Prior to that, English statutes provide no details or specifics. For example, they don't say how many pounds are in an ounce, or how many feet in an inch. Our only clue as to how it might have been done comes from the famous Statutes of uncertain date (statuta incerti temporis) generally thought to date from 1266 to about 1305. These were originally royal memoranda that over time acquired the force of law and eventually entered the statute books, often with presumed (and generally incorrect) regnal names and years. One of the most famous examples is the Assize of Weights and Measures (also known as Tractatus Ponderibus et Mensuris) quoted in the history section of this article and erroneously attributed to Henry III.
In conclusion, the part about "re-iterating decrees" is inappropriate. It comes too close to original research. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:21, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Improper reference

This article has four references to "Connor, R.D.; Simpson, A.D.C. (c2004). Weights and Measures in Scotland. East Linton" all without page numbers. Page numbers can be added with Template:Rp. Zyxwv99 (talk) 13:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Taken care of. Zyxwv99 (talk) 22:44, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bad (confusing) inclusion.

from the article: "The grain is commonly used to measure the mass of bullets and gun propellants. The term also refers to a single particle of gunpowder, the size of which varies according to requirements. In archery, the grain is the standard unit used to weigh arrows."

The term "grain" in referring to the single particle of gunpowder is unrelated to the unit of measure, and while it's true that, like sand, gun powders are generally granular, I wonder if the way this is included (that is, inserted between two instances where 'grain' DOES refer to the standard weight (or mass? I've love more clarity on that also) might tend to increase confusion. 50.50.87.116 (talk) 16:57, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Errors related to math / units / numbers

from the article: "A new pound of 7680 ounces was inadvertently created by at 16 troy ounces..." That HAS to be 7680 grains, rather than ounces. I'm unsure what I might need to do to back that change up.

from the article: "The carat was eventually set to 205 milligrains (1877), and later 2000 milligrains." This didn't make any sense to me. I am thinking that in this part, milligrams (mg, from the metric system) is intended. If "milligrains" is a real unit (and so-called), I'm unaware of it. Further, I think it was meant to state two hundred, rather than the rather drastic two thousand written.

50.50.87.116 (talk) 17:02, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Apparently a series of recent edits by Wendy.krieger [1] contains a number of typos. Maybe I will look at this later. Hans Adler 22:09, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I fixed them up. 7680 is correct, it ought to be grains. The other reference is to milligrams, not milligrains. It ought be 200, not 2000, as stated. The British carat was before this, thst 606 grains, or 151.5 carats, make the troy oz, so the carat was 3.1683168 BI grains. Many other countries had their own carats (eg prussia was 4.5 prussian grains), but it was forst set to 205 milligrams in 1877, and later to 200 milligrams. Wendy.krieger (talk) 07:22, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unit of Mass or Weight?

While the Grain is clearly identified as a unit of mass here, it is being used to define the Pound and Ounce, which are units of weight. Also, the grain certainly predates the metric system (although, of course, it may now be defined and understood in relation to SI somehow). The article seems to never address the difference between mass and weight, nor does it explain how that seems to not trouble the grain (as a standard unit) at all, as it appears to slip between both uses as suits its purpose. This is just an observation and a request that the article better address this confusing aspect of the grain. Thanks! 50.50.87.116 (talk) 17:10, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is wrong on several levels. First, the word mass is unambiguous but the word weight is ambiguous. In fact, it is used in at least three different senses: Weight in the narrow sense of modern physics, mass (in most non-technical and legal contexts) and both of these senses in many contexts in which the distinction does not matter, especially in historical contexts from before the distinction was made in physics.
Second, the troy ounce and the grain are derived from the troy pound, not the other way round -- both historically from the very beginning and today. Then at some point the avoirdupois pound got redefined as some weird number of troy grains.
Third, the pound (regardless of whether you mean the troy pound or the avoirdupois pound) is a unit of mass, not weight, which is defined as a precise multiple of the kilogramme and has been defined in this way for a very long time. (And before that it was defined as the mass of an artifact. Mass, not weight, as witnessed by the fact that the appropriate altitude was never specified.)
The distinction between mass and weight is completely tangential to this article anyway as these issues are no different for the grain than for any other unit of mass or weight and so should not be repeated in each and every article on a unit of mass or weight. It is true that parallel to the avoirdupois pound as a unit of mass the pound-force exists as a unit of weight in the narrow sense and is often just referred to as the pound. But that's really little more than a minority usage, although it appears to be immensely popular among engineers. Still, the claim of many engineers and some teachers that the pound is a unit of weight in the strict sense simply makes no sense given that all modern legal definitions and all standards bodies agree that the pound (and grain) is a precise multiple of the kilogramme, which has never been anything but a unit of mass. (The corresponding unit of force is the kilopond.) Such claims are similar to, and just as silly as, the claim that it is always wrong to 'split' an infinitive in English, or that prepositions must never be 'stranded' at the end of a sentence. (Both are perfectly valid according to all linguists, generally practised by the best writers, and often unavoidable in good style.) Maybe they are best understood as shibboleths. Hans Adler 22:04, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Grain"

The usage of Grain is under discussion, see talk:food grain -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Although the barleycorn article says "Not to be confused with the grain, a related unit." It should be made clearer the reason barley seeds were used for units of weight and length. Their consistent size made it possible, the size was much more consistent than modern cultivars and varieties. Also the history of the use of the two units is obviously the same. According to this ancient book the use has followed the trade routes which took barley cultivation from India, via Ancient Arabia and Portugal to England.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KAibOR651tkC&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&f=false
87.102.44.18 (talk) 13:03, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Obsolete?

The article says the grain is obsolete... then goes on to give all these situations where the grain is used. wat? 2603:7081:7C0F:B43:9DB9:928E:9D8A:1EC6 (talk) 06:01, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not claim the grain is obsolete. It claims it is obsolete in the UK. The following sentence could be read two ways:

It is obsolete in the United Kingdom, and like most other non-SI units, it has no basis in law and cannot be used in commerce.

One reading is it is obsolete in the United Kingdom and everywhere in the world, it has no basis in law and cannot be used in commerce. That reading is false. The true reading is that "in the United Kingdom" applies to the whole sentence.

Perhaps it should be rewritten like this:

In the United Kingdom, it is obsolete, and cannot be used in commerce.

It is false to say that all non-SI units have no basis in law and cannot be used in commerce. Road signs use customary British units for distances and speeds. Hours, days, months, and years are non-SI units and are used in commerce. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:01, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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