Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 12:33:00 +0100 (MET) From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de> To: smurfen@ludd.luth.se (Ola Persson) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD Chat) Subject: Re: FreeBSD hacker dinner report... Message-ID: <199611191133.MAA04294@freebie.lemis.de> In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.95.961103091014.25652F-100000@sister.ludd.luth.se> from Ola Persson at "Nov 9, 96 05:28:11 pm"
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Ola Persson writes: > > On Sat, 2 Nov 1996, Amancio Hasty wrote: > >> Okay, Bacardi 150 proof (Puerto Rican Rum) > > Why why WHY do you guys use 'proof' as a measure of alcoholic > content.. The original term was 'proof spirit', a mixture of alcohol and other things, mainly water, which when ignited would just barely cause gunpowder to burn. It was pretty much 50% alcohol. In the UK, the term is (was?) not used in the same way as in America. The Bacardi above would be 50 over proof. > I have always wondered.... And is it exacty twice as much as ? As %? That depends. The "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" specifies proof for alcohol to be "a mixture of alcohol and water having a specific gravity of 0.91984 and containing 0.495 of its weight, or 0.5727 of its volume, of absolute alcohol". Webster states it to be exactly 50% (like most values, by weight). Greg
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