Humor Post #57 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

We’ve been doing all this measuring at school in math, comparing the USA system to the metric system and stuff like that. I gotta say the metric system makes way more sense, but that’s not what this is about. This is about a real little thing, but I still think it’s important. To measure stuff we mostly use rulers and yardsticks and tape measures. Now tape measures make a lot of sense, especially the ones that are metal and curl up inside their case. Rulers are okay if you have a backpack but forget it if you only have pockets and don’t like being poked in the side. And yardsticks are just useless for carrying around, aren’t they? Well, you could put one down your pants leg, but that would probably slow you down just a little.

Anyway, here’s the small thing. We have a nice name for the stick that’s a yard long. Uh, it’s called a YARDSTICK. Makes sense, doesn’t it? We don’t use it a whole lot, but it does have a sensible name. So what do we call a stick that’s a foot long, you know, the one we use all the time. “A FOOTSTICK,” you yell out, “it’s gotta be a FOOTSTICK.” How sadly wrong you are, Paco. It’s called a RULER. What good does that do anybody? A ruler can be a foot or it can be six or eight inches. The word ruler doesn’t tell you anything. It certainly doesn’t rule.

Wouldn’t kids learn what a foot was better if we actually had something called a FOOTSTICK? The way it is now, a teacher has to explain that a ruler has 12 inches and, oh yeah, a ruler is usually a foot and a foot has 12 inches too. No wonder kids can’t do math right.

And why do they call it a FOOT anyway? Probably because the guy who invented it put a stick next to his foot and decided, “I think I’ll call this length of stick a foot. Yeah, that’ll make it easy for everyone for the rest of eternity.”

Thanks a lot, Bozo!