Talk:Foot (unit)

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The value of the United Kingdom primary standard of the yard was determined in terms of the meter by the National Physical Laboratory in 1964 as 0.9143969 m,[19] implying a pre-1959 foot in the UK of approximately 0.304798966667 m.

The cited figure from the NPL is to seven decimal places, someone has presumably divided it by three to get the length of a foot, which is fine, but that is listed to 11 decimal places, which might give the impression the test was a thousand times more accurate than it would seem looking at the figure for the yard. (obviously ideally some indication of the measurement accuracy other than by assumption based on the decimal places shown would be ideal, although that could start to get into the intended audience expectations of an encyclopedia vs the norms of scientific papers where more precision is expected but also more background knowledge is needed to make them understandable due to the extra complexity of how results are presented) --87.242.189.106 (talk) 17:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Opening sentence
, the opening sentence reads "The foot ( pl. feet); abbreviation: ft; symbol: &prime; (the prime symbol), is a unit of length in the imperial and US customary systems of measurement."

but in the body (under §International foot) we have "The international standard symbol for a foot is "ft" (see ISO 31-1, Annex A). In some cases, the foot is denoted by a prime,"

Per WP:LEAD the lead should summarise the body and the present lead is a bit off target. Of course, "ft" is an abbreviation of "foot" (even though ISO calls it a symbol) and prime [or, more honestly, typewriter apostrophe] is widely used as a symbol for foot. So we need to come up with a better form of words. Can anyone suggest an improvement on this: "The foot ( pl. feet), abbreviation and ISO standard symbol: ft, is a unit of length in the imperial and US customary systems of measurement. The prime symbol, &prime;, is a customarily used alternative symbol."

Comments? We could just look the other way, of course, but the infobox says "symbol ft" because that is the ISO standard (see Template talk:Infobox unit, so we aren't being consistent. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The sorts of people and organizations that control formal use of units of measure, such as scientists, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, and many of the factions responsible for science and math requirements in US public schools, are trying to phase out customary units. So I would expect scant attention to fine distinctions between abbreviations for the foot versus symbols for the foot. If you ask any of the sort of people or organizations I just mentioned about this, they'll ignore you unless you rephrase your question in terms of meters.
 * Since the foot is essentially a colloquial unit, instead of looking to organizations like ISO that despise customary units, it's better to look at dictionaries, which attempt to capture popular usage, for example, https://www.lexico.com/ (I set the variety setting to US English, but it probably doesn't matter much.
 * In Lexico, an abbreviation is "A shortened form of a word or phrase." That does not rule out the prime mark.
 * A symbol is "A mark or character used as a conventional representation of an object, function, or process, e.g. the letter or letters standing for a chemical element or a character in musical notation." That could apply either to the prime mark or ft, although you could argue that it says a character while ft is two characters. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:05, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You raise a different philosophical question. The function of a dictionary is to document what is, not what should be. An encyclopedia has more of a problem because it has to elaborate: it needs also to document what is but cannot do so without comment like a dictionary can. So we must record all documented styles: the only question really is how best to do so. The issue I'm raising here whether we can sensibly have an infobox saying that the symbol is 'this', an opening sentence that says the symbol is 'that' and some body text that says it is this again but that 'that' is also used. I know about the culture war, I'm trying to find a way to sidestep that issue. (By the way, your comment applies equally to kg: it is an abbreviation of kilogram and a two-letter symbol for that standard mass. The real world is messy sometimes). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:53, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
 * A technical point: the way the folks who advocate SI use the word "symbol", it's something that can be used in dimensional analysis. So it's not unusual to see expressions like m2. You also see expressions like ft3. But you would never see &prime;&minus;1.
 * About sources: ISO 30-1 is obsolete and has been replaced by ISO ISO 80000-3:2019. I don't have that standard, and I would be opposed to anyone adding information to the article unless the editor actually has access to, and has read, ISO 80000-3:2019. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Who do you think I am? Elon Musk? :-)
 * But I'm not proposing to add anything to the article, just to reorganise what is already in it, to make its internal contradictions less blatant. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:12, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Without being in possession of the ISO standard(s), it's hard to be sure which changes would be significant. For example, by changing from a claim that it's mentioned in ISO 31-1 Annex A (whatever that is) to saying "ISO standard symbol: ft we make a claim that none of the ISO standards set forth any other symbol for the foot. There's so many ISO standards that I wouldn't feel safe making such a claim. Jc3s5h (talk) 09:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ISO 80000-3:2019 does not mention the foot. However, there is an IEEE standard that defines non-SI units and their symbols. The IEEE standard symbol for the foot is ft. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:34, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * "there is an IEEE standard that defines non-SI units and their symbols" - which one? is it freely accessible? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * IEEE 260.1-2004. You might find the talk page a useful resource. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:14, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

"Metre" or "meter"?
This article contains an unsightly mix of US and UK English. I don't mind which is chosen but please let's pick one and apply that choice consistently. Do others have a preference? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:37, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Look near the top of this talk page; you will see an American English template. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:04, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * How come US English was chosen?Halbared (talk) 10:23, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Talk:Foot (unit)/Archive 1 Jc3s5h (talk) 10:30, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Not much of a debate! Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:05, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Haha, quite! Is there enough interest to reopen the 'debate'?Halbared (talk) 14:25, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Seriously? Life is too short! Why fight a battle that you know you will lose? There are a lot more of them and they still use these measures. By the way, I've just done a search and the only use of "metre" is a citation. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:07, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That's because all occurrences of "metre" were removed on 28 July. I found the inconsistency abhorrent, but the article seems fine (to me) after those edits. Perhaps someone should look at the convert template though. I had to replace it with manual unit conversions to achieve consistent spelling. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 20:38, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

More appropriate to include lengths in inches
This article isn't very accessible, since most of the measurements are cited in mm. I would edit to include inch measurements as well as metric myself, but all edits to wikipedia are reverted. This is an article about a standard unit in the imperial system. If anything should refer to imperial units, an article about imperial units should refer to imperial units. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C4E:1200:BD:2D4E:4551:5399:8014 (talk) 22:24, 10 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The purpose of converting to millimetres is to distinguish between multiple different definitions of "foot". Converting to inches would not achieve that because the inch is at least as ambiguous as the foot, so the reader would learn nothing useful. It probably is worth mentioning (if not done already) that some "feet" were divided into 10 inches and some into 12. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 07:01, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

"Foot length" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Foot length and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 5 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 06:21, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

"Foot(unit of length)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Foot(unit of length) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 6 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 19:05, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

"Evaluation of additional 19th C. Italian sources on the foot as used in Italy" listed at Redirects for discussion
dear all,

the Wiki page for the old measure of the 'palm' [see Palmo (unità di misura) - Wikipedia] offers a link to a pdf-source named "Antiche pesi e mesure" [i.e. Ancient weights and measures] (retrieved via Wayback Machine (archive.org)) which, translated from Italian, says the following on the unit 'foot' (piede):

"A linear unit of measurement that differs from place to place.

The Neapolitan 'foot' (piede napolitano), used since the 11th century, was equivalent to 0.3349 metres.

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the French foot (piede francese) or royal foot of Paris (piede regio di Parigi) was also used, which was equivalent to 0.324839 metres (today estimated to be 0.324864 metres)."

Interesting is that the article cites the following old 19th C. sources, all in Italian:

1° : Antonio Pasquale Favaro: "Metrologia o sia Trattato Generale delle Misure, de' Pesi e delle Monete." [Metrology or General Treatise on Measures, Weights and Coins]. Napoli: Gabinetto Bibliografico e Tipografico, 1826;

> Tavole delle Mesure Antiche [Tables of Ancient Measurements], p. 88 :

piede di Parigi = 0,3248 m

2° : Carlo Afan de Rivera: "Tavole di riduzione de' Pesi e delle misure della Sicilia Citeriore in quelli statuiti dalla legge de' 6 aprile del 1840". [Tables of Reductions of Weights and Measures of Sicilia Citeriore in those established by the Law of 6 April 1840]. Napoli: Stamperia e Cartiere del Fibreno, 1840;

3° : Angelo Martini: "Manuale di metrologia ossia Misure, Pesi e Monete in uso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i popoli antichi". [Handbook of Metrology i.e. Measures, Weights and Coins in Current and Ancient Use by All Ancient Peoples]. Roma: Editrice E.C.A., 1976, a facsimile reprint of the original Turin edition of 1883.

(> It is clear that there's a 'before' and 'after' 1840 situation regarding these old units of measurements, due to a Law dating from April 6, 1840)

Maybe, this pdf-source can be checked by an editor fluent in Italian to ascertain if the measurement equivalents in metres are correctly cited from one of the 3 old bibliographical sources above.

If yes, then this info can be added to the article in some way...

PS : regarding the denomination "Sicilia Citeriore"

citerióre adj. [from Latin citerior -oris, compar. of prep. Citra "on this side"]. - Which is located on this side, towards us (with respect to another part of the region, which is said to be 'ulteriore '); it is usually used in geographical determinations of the ancient world (Spagna c., Gallia c.), and in administrative designations now disused, such as Calabria c., Abruzzo citeriore. (translated from citerióre in Vocabolario - Treccani).

It therefore must be making reference to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1816-1860), of which Naples was the capital.

Sicilia citeriore must then refer to all of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States, which covered most of the area of today's Mezzogiorno, as compared to the island of Sicily itself which would then be considered Sicilia ulteriore.

Shooting4truth (talk) 21:29, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Plural : feet
Shouldn't a usage note be added regarding the use of foot? For example,

Foot can also be used instead of feet when mentioning a quantity and in front of words like tall: four foot of snow; he is at least six foot tall JMGN (talk) 16:46, 26 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The proposed usage note is incorrect. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:47, 26 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, page 1588, reads
 * >Examples like She’s six foot tall  involve a special use of the singular form rather than a base plural: the difference between this and How many feet are there in a mile? is a matter of syntax.
 * >In a herd of elephant the construction involves a special use of the singular in certain syntactic contexts (comparable to the six foot tall construction). JMGN (talk) 09:10, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * See https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/ask-a-teacher-foot-or-feet-/4628864.html
 * The singular is used when the quantity and unit are used as a phrase to describe a noun. A six-foot man, where man is a noun. When the quantity-unit phrase applies to a word or phrase that is not a noun, the plural is used. In four feet of snow, "of snow" is a prepositional phrase, not a noun. In he is at least six feet tall "six feet" applies to the adjective "tall". Jc3s5h (talk) 14:54, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Fowler (4th edn) is more descriptive and indicates a wider use of "foot": "The normal plural feet alternates with foot when used as a unit of length or height: She is six feet/foot tall; a plank ten feet/foot long. When such a phrase is used attributively a hyphen is normally placed ... In contexts in which the number of inches is also given, foot is more common than feet: ... C.A. [a West Indian fast bowler] is six foot eight." (italics per Fowler) NebY (talk) 15:19, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Surely to get into this level of detail on particular usages is (a) colloquial/regional BrE [see for ex. "a ten pound bet"] and is uncommon elsewhere; (b) out of scope for Wikipedia – leave it to Wiktionary (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/foot#Usage_notes ). --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:07, 27 August 2023 (UTC) (PS: I agree with Jc3s5h, because "a ten pound bet" should be written as "a ten-pound bet". Either way, I wouldn't touch this one with a forty-foot pole. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:09, 27 August 2023 (UTC))
 * Fair. We're not saying anything about English usage that needs correcting. NebY (talk) 20:41, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Other wikipedia articles include similar information tho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Singular_terminology_issue JMGN (talk) 14:25, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Other wikipedia articles include similar information tho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Singular_terminology_issue JMGN (talk) 14:25, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Reopening this discussion: "foot" is commonly used as its own plural: eg "how tall are you? Six foot." is common usage. No one would say "six yard" or "six metre". Foot is unique in that way. I made an edit, but it was reverted, incorrectly in my opinion. 2.222.13.214 (talk) 14:00, 9 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Sorry but the correct answer to the how tall question is "six feet". But expressions like "she is five foot nothing" or "she is six foot two" are common usage.
 * The better answer to your question is "find a reliable source that says so and we can use it". Nb examples of use are not good enough, it has to be something that describes the usage. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * An additional example, involving a different unit, is a hundred-meter race [italics removed because they were present for discussion purposes and not a normal part of the phrase]. Notice it doesn't say "a hundred-meters race". Jc3s5h (talk) 20:06, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Four-man bobsleigh, two-state solution, three-way .... NebY (talk) 20:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * how long is a hundred metre race? 2A02:C7C:7483:CE00:E0AC:F79D:1C:F7BD (talk) 21:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * And is it the same a a hundred meter race? HiLo48 (talk) 21:44, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't get it. Surely you mean a 328.0839895 foot race? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the point is: the answer to the question "how long is a 100 metre/meter race" would be "100 metres/meters". But the answer to the question "how long is a 100 foot race" would typically be "100 foot". Because foot is an extremely widely used alternative plural to feet. Those who say "oh yes its just the same as metres etc when used in adjectival form" are missing the point here.
 * "Examples of use are not good enough" is a ridiculous claim- reflecting of personal prejudice and far beyond protocol. Most plurals on wikipedia aren't referenced by citations, only by usage 78.25.215.6 (talk) 13:08, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * There's just one small problem with your argument: The correct answer to the question "How long is a 100 foot race?" is 100 feet, not 100 foot. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:36, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * In your opinion perhaps - but we're not really interested in what is "correct" in the opinion of an anonymous wikipedia editor, only what is common usage. 78.25.215.6 (talk) 14:37, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia editors, as such, are not allowed to gauge common usage. Gathering examples of usages from sources that are not specifically about words and their use, such as dictionaries and style guides, or scholarly publications on such subjects like the ''International Journal of Lexicography, is a method of gauging common use and, when done by Wikipedia editors, runs afoul of the No original research policy. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * You just completely made that up, didn't you. You must think we're stupid. Finding examples of usage are by far the most common means of justifying mentioning alternatives spellings/usages on Wikipedia. 2A02:C7C:7483:CE00:ED55:A559:F64B:B65F (talk) 22:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No, an example of usage is not a valid citation for usage in general; it is wp:cherry-picking. Unless you do a large survey and evaluate it, whereupon it is a WP:no original research violation. That is why we need a WP:reliable source to make the judgement call. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:59, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * If that was true, then all, or at least the majority of plural annotations on wikipedia would be backed up with a metasource. But they're not - in fact I can't find a single example. Which rather suggests that far from common guidance this is simply a "rule" you have invented. I suggest you stand down. 2.222.13.214 (talk) 10:02, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Is the US survey foot still used?
A us. survey foot is expressed as a fraction — 1200/3937 meters — while an international foot is expressed as a decimal, exactly 0.3048 meters. That's a difference of only one one-hundredth of a foot per mile. RicHard-59 (talk) 07:12, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * In a word, yes. see the National Geodetic Survey webpage about this. The main use of survey feet is in state plane coordinate systems. A land surveyor may be looking for something as small as a 3/8 inch diameter rebar (used to mark a property corner) a distance of 100 miles from the origin of the x, y coordinates. Haphazardly switching between survey feet and international feet will make a big mess.
 * When the deprecation date for survey feet was chosen (January 1, 2023) it was thought the new state plane coordinate systems of 2022 would be released. But Covid delayed this (as well as the tendency for the US federal government to never get anything done on time). The plan was (and is) to start using international feet on new projects that otherwise would have used survey feet when the new state plane coordinate systems are released. This is now expected to be in 2025.
 * The survey foot will still be used for old projects until those projects are resurveyed or go through some other big conversion process. How long will that take? The last time the government did a survey of the road I live on was in 1811. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:43, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Harappan foot measure error in source
The Harappan equivalent is stated in the article as "[...] a foot of 333.5 mm (13.2 in) [...]". In the cited source, on page 117, it is stated as "[...] the foot (13.2 inches or 33.35 cm) [...]" with the metric in centimeters instead of millimeters. However, if you convert either metric value into inches, you get 13.129921 inches which does not round to 13.2in. What appears to have happened is a typo in the cited source where the author transposed the two decimal digits of the metric value (from 33.53 to 33.35) since 33.53cm does convert to 13.2in. If so, then the value listed here should be 335.3mm (if we stick with millimeters instead of the centimeters of the source). However, I am not sure what to actually do for this article since, on one hand, there is an obvious typo in the cited source which creates an easy to see mathematical error in this article but, on the other hand, we are also supposed to stick with what is stated in the source. — al-Shimoni  (talk) 12:34, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * IMO, you should take the 13.2 inches as the original data and correct the author's math error. That is a sensible and reasonable thing to do. But beware of excess precision in your conversion. So just use 13.2 in, which returns "13.2 in" (so correct to nearest 1 mm, which is appropriate given that the original measurement was (presumably!) correct to nearest $1/undefined$ of an inch). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:23, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

New Year’s Eve 2023 Marked the Retirement of the U.S. Survey Foot
https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2023/01/new-years-eve-2023-marked-retirement-us-survey-foot Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * It's only retired for new work. Projects that were/will be done with the U.S. survey foot will continue to use it unless and until the project is converted to a more up-to-date unit of measure.
 * In many states the survey foot will continue to be used with projects in the State Plane Coordinate System of 1983 until the National Geodetic Survey releases the State Plane Coordinate System of 2022; this is expected to be in 2025. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:11, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

United States defines the meter??
A recent series of edits by made the first paragraph of the US survey foot section read
 * In the United States, the meter was defined by the Metric Act of 1866, and ratified by the Mendenhall Order of 1893, as exactly 39.37 inches, making the US survey foot $1200⁄3937$ meter or approximately 0.304 800 609 601 219 m.

I reverted this portion of the edit. For one thing, the Metric Act of 1866 does not say it is defining the unit (or any other metric measure) it says it is listing equivalent values. It does not say which is a mathematical conversion of the other. Also, the approximate length of the foot given in meters is given to an extraordinary precision. I suspect this much precision is not justified, and would want to see a reliable source that explains how this is justified.

In addition, the Metric Act of 1866 did not make the US survey foot equivalent to a particular fraction of the meter, it made the foot, as enforced in the United States, equivalent to a particular fraction of the meter. The US didn't have two different feet until the invention of gauge blocks (in practice) or until 1960 in terms of the government's position.

Finally, the passage makes it seem as if the 1893 Mendenhall Order ratified the idea of defining the meter in terms of the foot. The reverse is true. The Office of Standards of the Coast and Geodetic Survey found the standard yard and standard pound unstable, and increasingly favored the standard meter and kilogram which they possessed. Mendenhall finally made it official with his order: US customary units were actually based on metric standards. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)