Posted on 04/04/2008 8:10:23 AM PDT by blam
No kidding, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Guess there were more than one ways to lose an arm and a leg back in the day ... *ducks*
And they didn’t take too kindly to people appealing their assessments...
}:-)4
Gives a new meaning to “Tribute” bands.
So, if you didn’t paid your taxes it really could cost you and “arm and a leg”!.........................
Aztec Math Used Hearts and Arrows
I didn't realize the Aztec were so tall that the average one could reach up that far.
I wonder if the early speculators were able to pyramid their gains. Ba da bump.
Too funny!
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Thanks Blam. |
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This will be the basis for the Internal Revenue Code of Aztlan.
So basically even in this relatively primitive society, the tax man’s fees were counted via a system that used your body parts as counters.
No doubt they’d charge something like three fingers for late filing, radical circumcision for failure to file and rip your heart out for finagling your tax return.
Things never change. The Tax Man cometh soon.
When doing a rough measurement on the size of a room, for example when I want to buy paint or a rug, I use the finger tip to finger tip measure, which in most people is the same as one’s height. In my case roughly 5 1/2 feet. I also use the span from thumb tip to pinky tip, which is 8 inches, for small measurements, like the width and depth of a refrigerator or washing machine. This is really handy when you are at a yard sale without a tape measure.
Distance
In all traditional measuring systems, short distance units are based on the dimensions of the human body. The inch represents the width of a thumb; in fact, in many languages, the word for “inch” is also the word for “thumb.” The foot (12 inches) was originally the length of a human foot, although it has evolved to be longer than most people’s feet. The yard (3 feet) seems to have gotten its start in England as the name of a 3-foot measuring stick, but it is also understood to be the distance from the tip of the nose to the end of the middle finger of the outstretched hand. Finally, if you stretch your arms out to the sides as far as possible, your total “arm span,” from one fingertip to the other, is a fathom (6 feet).
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/custom.html
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