Great essay. Eyeballing does work in many situations as described. Here is another tip for those that find themselves in need to measure something but are caught without a measuring tape: use your body parts. I learned this while living in rural Costa Rica. In the countryside, practically no one carries a measuring tape with them but often someone needs to measure things (lengths of rope or wire, distance from a post to the next, etc.).
They use a series of "non-standard" measurements that they have arrived at by calculating and memorizing things like steps (1 long step = 1 meter or 3 feet); a "cuarta" which is about 20 cm from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the pinky finger on a wide-open hand; a "brazada" with is a length of rope or fishing line equivalent to 1 meter, calculated by holding the end of the rope or line in one hand and bringing the other end to a point in front of the chest. And so on.
The trick is to measure accurately ONCE the reference you want to create to eyeball it in the field. My examples that I use frequently:
- One inch = length of the second segment of my right index finger
- One meter = three feet = One long step (but not too long)
- 20 centimeters = Distance from thumb tip to pinky tip
Enjoy measuring yourself and becoming a living ruler!
Carlos - I love that you shared this! The gesture I made in the image for this story is one of mine - it equals 1 foot - and now I know it's also two cuartas!
I’m glad to hear. Perhaps the weirdest body-measurement I encountered in Costa Rica is the “geme or jeme.” Hold your extended thumb and index finger (like the cocked gun gesture that kids make) and the distance between the thumb and index finger tips is a geme. Weird, inaccurate, but widely used in the countryside.
Great essay. Eyeballing does work in many situations as described. Here is another tip for those that find themselves in need to measure something but are caught without a measuring tape: use your body parts. I learned this while living in rural Costa Rica. In the countryside, practically no one carries a measuring tape with them but often someone needs to measure things (lengths of rope or wire, distance from a post to the next, etc.).
They use a series of "non-standard" measurements that they have arrived at by calculating and memorizing things like steps (1 long step = 1 meter or 3 feet); a "cuarta" which is about 20 cm from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the pinky finger on a wide-open hand; a "brazada" with is a length of rope or fishing line equivalent to 1 meter, calculated by holding the end of the rope or line in one hand and bringing the other end to a point in front of the chest. And so on.
The trick is to measure accurately ONCE the reference you want to create to eyeball it in the field. My examples that I use frequently:
- One inch = length of the second segment of my right index finger
- One meter = three feet = One long step (but not too long)
- 20 centimeters = Distance from thumb tip to pinky tip
Enjoy measuring yourself and becoming a living ruler!
Carlos - I love that you shared this! The gesture I made in the image for this story is one of mine - it equals 1 foot - and now I know it's also two cuartas!
I’m glad to hear. Perhaps the weirdest body-measurement I encountered in Costa Rica is the “geme or jeme.” Hold your extended thumb and index finger (like the cocked gun gesture that kids make) and the distance between the thumb and index finger tips is a geme. Weird, inaccurate, but widely used in the countryside.