Bibliography
The information in the dictionary comes from many sources,
but the following reference works have been particularly valuable.
I recommend them to anyone interested in further research on units.
They should all be available in large university libraries.
- R.D. Connor, The Weights and Measures of England.
London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1987
- A comprehensive and highly readable account of the history
of weights and measures in England. Soundly disposes of some
old misconceptions, based on careful examination of both documentary
and archaeological evidence.
-
- Mike Darton and John O.E. Clark, The Dent Dictionary of
Measurement. London: J.M. Dent, 1994.
- This work covers all kinds of measurement terminology, not
just units.
-
- H.G. Jerrard and D.B McNeill, A Dictionary of Scientific
Units. 6th edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1992.
- Covers both metric and non-metric scientfic units, including
many obsolete units not included in this dictionary.
-
- Ronald Edward Zupko, A Dictionary of Weights and Measures
for the British Isles: The Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century.
Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society (Memoir #168), 1985.
- This detailed and comprehensive work provides both the official
definitions and a listing of all known local variations. It covers
Irish, Welsh, and Scottish units as well as English. It is essential
for all historical research in which knowing the size of the
units is important. If you can't find it, look for Zupko's earlier
work, A Dictionary of English Weights and Measures from Anglo-Saxon
Times to the Nineteenth Century (Madison: University of Wisconsin,
1968), which contains much of the same information for the English
units. Zupko has also published dictionaries of traditional French
and Italian units.
-
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You are welcome to email
the author (rowlett@email.unc.edu) with comments and suggestions.
All material in this folder is copyright © 2001 by Russ
Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Permission
is granted for personal use and for use by individual teachers
in conducting their own classes. All other rights reserved. You
are welcome to make links to this page, but please do not copy
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at this site will be updated from time to time.
February 20, 2001