• phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    A mile is 1000 paces (one left, one right) of a nominal Roman soldier carrying what was full kit in those days. Mille = 1000. Its value has drifted over the centuries and was different in England and France, and not even particularly well standardized in England until relatively recently.

    • wheezy@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      For sure. I had another comment basically explaining it has always been a term of colloquial meaning to explain distance. It’s mostly only Americans that use it for real distance measurements. And even then a lot Americans explain distance in terms of “time it takes to drive”.