Reasonable question: I reckon the answer involves the desire by old time codifiers to specify some universal feature of the kind that "chin to finger-tip" represents.
Brian W
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19 years ago
Mechanical hangover
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19 years ago
And the yard was originally the distance from the end of an outstretched hand to the tip of the nose - as used for time immemoriable to measure cord, cloth, etc. Archery probably comes in there somewhere as well.
Probably totally coincidentally, 3 is near enough the square root of 10. A 10:1 increase is a bit large to proportion by eye, but 3:1 is pretty easy.
Bruce.
Brian Whatcott wrote: