Talk:Ell

nibw

http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-ell1.htm http://www.sizes.com/units/ell.htm http://home.clara.net/brianp/quickref.html

The ell is first encountered as the Egyptian nibw or 2 feet, 8 palms, 600 mm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rktect (talk • contribs) 17:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

images

surely the photograph of a ell is in fact a cubit. two reasons (1) that is what a cubit is and (2) does not match the measurements in the diagram. A good useful article though, with thanks. Edmund Patrick ( ^confer _work) 12:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Book of Enoch

Said the height of the Gaints born from the daughters of men and the sons of God were 3,000 ells.

?

If an English Ell is from the shoulder to the wrist as it says in the text - then why does the diagram show differently? Clarification is needed. Malick78 (talk) 12:06, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Right now the lead paragraph says an ell is a measure "approximating the distance from the elbow to the wrist" which would be about twelve inches (hold your foot up to your forearm). The rest of the article gives lengths ranging from 31 to 37 inches, and the diagram shows three measures: the distance from the fingertip to the shoulder, from the fingertip to the opposite shoulder and from the fingertip to the opposite elbow. I'm going to fix this so it says "approximating the length of a mans arm," which is at least true of the Scottish and Flemish measures and at least sets up the "theme" of the related measures. Stevecudmore (talk) 15:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Etymology

Putting this here now, where I should have written it before: there were two differing derivations of the word ell in the article, for England and Scotland, which I cn-tagged for that reason. With remarkable promptness they were replaced by two different, referenced, but still apparently differing, derivations. It seems counter-intuitive that the same word should have different origins on the two sides of the border, even if there is probably no conflict between the two. My uninformed guess is that all four are part of the story, but I don't have the skills to put them in order, or to make any real sense of what is in Skeat. Nor do I have OED access atm. Would it be worth making a short Etymology section (with perhaps a History section to follow it), in the hope that some more expert editor would put some good stuff into it and resolve this seeming inconsistency? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:14, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

And I'll copypaste here the explanation of my "replacement": I don't think there are two different derivations. The OED etymology says:

Etymology: Common Germanic: Old English ęln, strong feminine = Middle Dutch elne, elle (Dutch el), Old High German elina (Middle High German elne, modern German elle), Old Norse ǫln, alin (Swedish aln, Danish alen), Gothic aleina (? scribal error for *alina) cubit < Old Germanic *alinâ, whence medieval Latin alena, Italian alna, Old Spanish alna, Old Portuguese alna, French aune. The Old Germanic word (a compound of which is elbow n.) meant originally arm or fore-arm, and is cognate with Greek ὠλένη, Latin ulna, of same meaning.

As Middle English was a predecessor of Scots, I think it's the same root. Mostly I wanted to replace the unsourced claim that it came into Scots "from the Latin ulnia", as the two sources seem to me to imply that that was not the case. Nevertheless, I only cited the pages in such a way as not to be accused of OR. --Thrissel (talk) 15:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

The word root has been traced all the way back to proto-Indo-European (although I don't have the typographical skills to reproduce it on my keyboard). Besides meaning elbow, the word acquired an additional sense of cubit in four adjacent branches of Indo-European (Italic, Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic). According to some scholars, those four branches were once part of the Celto-Italo-Germano-Balto-Slavo-Indo-Iranian language continuum, which, in turn, accounted for about half the known branches of IE. Zyxwv99 (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

That is completely absurd. How many men have you ever met in your entire life with arms as long as posited here?

This comment was removed by a bot as vandalism. I'm putting it here because I think it deserves some consideration. Certainly a man with arms 45 inches from the shoulder would be an unusual sight, perhaps more so than a man with a six-foot stretch, as postulated by the 'Vitruvian man' template, which I have proposed for deletion as misleading and factually incorrect, attractive though it may be. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:47, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Very few (if any) units of measure named after body parts were actually the length of the body part in question. In ancient times and through the Middle Ages, various civilizations had national prototype standards, like "the royal yard" (cubit, ulna, etc.). The standards were usually deposited in the royal palace or some such place. Copies were then made and distributed to the provinces, which made further copies and passed them down the line to localities, etc. All other units of linear measure, including the foot, inch, barley-corn, etc. were just fractions or multiples of the base unit. Just like the meter today. Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I am slowly working through various measurement article cataloguing the various sizes of the unit in question in various European countries (see Foot (unit) and Stone (imperial mass) for typical tables) - the ell needs quite a bit of research before I can do much. Martinvl (talk) 21:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

How about adding Russian measure of same meaning? SoNick RND (talk) 10:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Ell - cubit

What is the reason to treat ell and cubit as different lemmata instead as synonyms?? Kipala (talk) 21:45, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

45 inches

Although the article states that the 45 inch ell is obsolete, fabric is still commonly manufactured and sold in widths of 45, 60 and 90 inches, 60 being one ell and one third. So although the term "ell" has vanished, its use as a measurement appears to be alive and well. 80.195.8.194 (talk) 14:21, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

OBVIOUSLY incorrect.

Off-topic discussion

Dear God..

Someone do some quick math for me and figure out how tall a hominid 3,000 ells would be?

Uh-huh. I just saw some other article from someone (obviously using this as their source) claiming that the Nephalim MUST have been 2.4 miles tall. I didn't check his actual math, but based on this interpretation, I think I know where he got that idea.

First off, the cubit and ell were confused and cross referenced in definition in medieval times. THAT'S why you have wildly different measurements dating from the old testament compared to relatively modern interpretations. As correctly mentioned below, the term was generally defined by whichever local monarch carried the biggest stick (not a pun for ruler).

In addition, there is a large amount of confusion about HOW the length of an ell was determined in ancient times. It's obvious that no one here is privy to that information. It is commonly understood that the length of an ell was measured by forming the shape an 'L' with some joint of the fingers, wrist or elbow. Obviously, it would be impossible to get a measurement of 45" using this methodology, without detaching some part of your arm to do it. Now maybe I'm over-simplifying the matter (on the other hand my best guess is as good as anyone elses' guess), but my best L is made by using my thumb and forefinger to make the traditional 'Loser' hand gesture. (Ok, honestly, I'm recalling a pre-internet based scholarly exposition on the topic which used this same modality). The distance from my thumb to forefinger in this position is (oddly) six inches, precisely. (I am 6' 2" tall.) Let's adjust for Old testament men being significantly shorter (4' 6" to 5') that brings us to 4.5" or 5". (Hmm, 4.5" verses 45".. HMM..) I'm going to guess that human nature hasn't changed in the last few millennia, and that the king was the tall handsome burly guy.. so we'll use 5" as the 'kings measure'.

5" x 3,000 (ells) = 15,000 inches = 1,250 feet = still ludicrous.

Now I can't recall the logic of it, but since they can categorically throw the 5" figure out, they had some logic to use the width of a finger next. They had some logic to relate the width of the finger to a centimeter, so I'll just follow that..

1cm x 3,000 = 3,000cm / 2.54 = 1182 in. = 98.5 ft. = implausible, but POSSIBLE

Personally I always pictured the Nephalim as somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 ft. tall. Largely due to David vs. Goliath legends I suppose. HOWEVER, the author in question compares the description of the Nephalim in the various biblical references to the description of the titans.. which is PERFECTLY in line with this! Everyone on the planet pictures the Kraken as a giant squid, even BEFORE modern science had FOUND a giant squid! (Untwist that logic, I'll wait. ;) )

THEN I noticed an ASTOUNDING correlation. Let's look at the Hebrew passage: The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, | | and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

The place where I separated the two statements is where it is commonly noted that the one does not NECESSARILY relate to the other.

Now the next statement:

And there we saw the Nephilim, || the sons of Anak, || who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

WUT..? This appears to be describing three different groups of people.. unless we transliterate Nephilim to the literal giants.. THEN we can read it as describing two different races..

And there we saw the Giants, the sons of Anak, || who come of the (old?) Giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.[12]

I hereby offer the postulation that the ONE race of Giants, the SONS of Anak, commonly referred to as Nephalim (the Titans) were in the order of 100 feet tall. I offer that there was a SECOND race of Giants, the Anak of which Goliath was a party, in the order of twenty feet tall. This race of giants aligns with various other global cultural myths of giants around the world.. including the slightly ridiculous legend of the Annunaki.. if you translated it less loosely to mean 'aliens from some far fetched planet on an orbit around the sun which couldn't support life'. :D

Is it following the scientific method precisely, well no, but it's logical without any far stretches of the imagination. Personally, I think the logic flows in a BEAUTIFUL ways with enough coincidences to make it a serious possibility by definition alone, let alone what appears to be some next-level genius on my part.

Ok, I'm done here. That's my epiphany of the day. Take it for what it is, that's all I ask. :)

...Ok, one final final thought.. did the Greek empire ever reach far enough that we could posit that Mt. Olympus was originally located in Israel? Ok, NOW I think I'm done making epiphanies for the day. :)

Crogonint (talk) 23:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

My apologies I don't recall how to do an official edit.. I fixed a few typos. :) Crogonint (talk) 23:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Hollo, Crogonint. Please try and keep on topic. This is not a forum for you to free-associate from one idea to another, as you can see on our policy page WP:NOTFORUM. This is a place for discussing specific ways to improve the article Ell, which doesn't even mention the Nephilim.

I can see from your edit history that you're pretty new here, and probably not yet familiar with some of our ways. I'll drop some more information at your talk page. Alephb (talk) 00:12, 31 August 2018 (UTC)