Triumphrat

Bonnevillian

I've been Ton-up on my 78 Tiger and my 77 Bonnie in MPH but... In England is that KPH?

If in England it means MPH... then why did they adopt the American unit of measure just for the term?

Just wondering ......

[ This message was edited by: Bonnevillian on 2006-06-27 20:25 ]

Bonnevillian

Well... I found this....

ton-up (old slang)
adj

1. Usually said of a motorcyclist: travelling or having travelled at more than 100mph, especially often and recklessly.

noun

1. A speed of more than 100mph.

Etymology: 1960s: from ton 8.


I thought the term originated in England. But the MPH doesn't make sense to me. It appears the term may have originated in the USA?

I also found that "doing the Ton" is more appropriate when talking about motorcycles and Ton-up is a term used in Darts meaning 3 in the bullseye. Where in the USA we call that a Tophat.

Any thoughts? :-D

[ This message was edited by: Bonnevillian on 2006-06-27 21:06 ]

Slinky

We still have MPH.. the Euro dictators have not managed to take them away yet. We don't need no stinkin' KPH

I am pretty sure the term originated with the 60's Rockers.

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CaptRussell

"why did they adopt the American unit of measure just for the term? "
You must be a young fella eh :-)
We used the term here down under too and yes we used to have the old MPH as well. Who was it who invented miles again? :-)

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Bonnevillian

Not too young... 42, just they never taught the history of MPH in school and I thought the USA was the only place that used it. :-D


I looked it up... a mile is 1000 double paces (The Romans!) :razz:

[ This message was edited by: Bonnevillian on 2006-06-28 04:20 ]

pendraig

They still use miles over in the UK, but they buy their petrol in litres (still have some memory of the gallon, but it was an "imperial" gallon, which is more than a "US" gallon).
When riding down the coast of Northern Ireland, I was expecting to encounter what we see on the TV news when arriving at the border with the Irish Republic. Namely, bomb-dogs, Armored Land Rovers, Troops with L1A1's looking under cars with mirrors. Instead, they didn't even have a sign up saying "Welcome to Ireland. Please fasten your seatbelts, it's the law." All we noticed was that the distance to Dublin was now listed in kms instead of miles.
When I was a kid in school, they called miles part of the "English System" of weights and measures. The English got the mile from the Romans. The word comes from the Latin word for a thousand, (meaning a thousand left-paces )and the Roman empire was measued in them by troops keeping cadence as they marched along their military highways.

panda

An obstruction to teh flow of water in a river = *****, so we've been metric all this time and didn't know it


[ This message was edited by: panda on 2006-06-28 14:25 ]

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CaptRussell

A ton is in fact the term used in place of 100 in a number of English and colonial contexts. For instance £100 is sometimes referred to as a ton, scoring 100 runs in cricket is to ‘hit a ton’ and, of course 'doing a ton' means travelling at 100 miles per hour. Oh and yes 42 makes you a young fella, just a junior member of the ulysses club :-)

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pendraig

If ya really want to get real confused real fast, check out : ton vs. tonne vs. long-ton vs. metric ton.
Also, check out the history of the metric system, which started in France. There were proposals to measure time in metric units (and I believe that some of them were tried just after the (French) revolution. I remember a month named "Thermador"?

"Nyuk, nyuk"...Curly Howard

panda

Hmm, a little before my time, you do have a good memory

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A wise man learns from his mistakes..
A genius learns from other peoples mistakes.