Talk:Demiard

Half an ard?
Is there any basis for this statement? Any evidence that there is an ard somewhere? fr:WP says "probably comes from 'demi-chopine'" -- it seems likely to me that this is simply "a big half", along the lines of a milliard (which is not 1/1000 of an ard!). As such it really is just a word with a number of meanings, "half of something". Imaginatorium (talk) 09:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I have added a citation to the work I came across in my browsing. Andrew D. (talk) 17:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * But does that work actually refer to an "ard"? The quote given doesn't.


 * Is the "ard" any more real than the "Stupping ton"? OED hasn't got it (except as a light plough, or a suffix meaning "one who does to excess, or who does what is discreditable"), nor online Larousse, nor online Oxford combined dictionaries (including bilingual). Where is the source for the statement that a Demiard was "originally half of an ard"?


 * The "ard" also isn't mentioned in Units of measurement in France before the French Revolution where the "Demiard" is described (and to which I've just redirected Chopine (unit), along with making the missing hatnote from Chopine). Pam  D  22:02, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, rereading the quote I see that a colonel is credited with the information that it's obsolete. I'm not sure I trust the colonel! I'd really like to know of any dictionary which includes it, rather than the reported colonel having reasoned that there must have been such a unit, but as he'd never heard of it it must have been obsolete! Pam  D  22:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)