One of those daft thoughts kicking around in my head ended up in a little bit of internet research this afternoon. Why do we (the Brits) abbreviate “pound” weights to “lb”?
It turns out, it’s from the Latin word libra, meaning “scales”. Which makes sense. It seems the Romans also used a unit of weight similar to our pound which they also called a libra. The Latin for “weight” is pondus, hence our word “pound”.
Told you it was random.
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Well I never knew that – thanks for sharing! So how come ounce reduced to ‘oz’?
From the old Italian (not Roman) word onza.
Smart alec! 🙂
I try. A shame all the facts I know are bloody useless trivia.