Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
Une pinte, actually. And if you do so, you get 50cl. France *has*not* retained imperial measures, its language has simply retained a few of the terms.
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Whilst France is "metric" they, as you say, retain some old measures, at least in name, though most have been "metricised" in volume and weight (probably for the taxman). The early troubles were caused by the same, or similar, names actually being different quantities around the country and indeed, Europe wide. That made trade difficult.
My wife had several old French recipe books that mentioned pintes, livres, litrons, demi-quarterons, demiard and chopine amongst others.
The pinte was actually just under a litre, and was 1⁄36 of a cubic pied du roi.
A pinte in Paris is now half of what it was in the rest of the country (do the Parisiens get Paris Weighting Allowance?)