There are 3 possibilities for what the yard was based on, and none of them encourages one to go on using it;
1. It's a double cubit. ("What's a cubit?" "Half a yard, stoopid".)
2. It was more or less the distance around a man's waist.
3 It was the distance from King Henry I (1100-1135)'s nose to his thumb, with his arm outstretched, or something like that. That's King Henry I of England, and some of France as I recall, perhaps wrongly.
The word 'yard' comes from the Old English gyrd, meaning a rod or measure
Enough already.
Last edited by Capot; 14th July 2012 at 14:04.