my-server
← Wiki

Gill (unit)

The gill or teacup is a unit of measurement for volume equal to a quarter of a pint. It is no longer in common use, except in regard to the volume of alcoholic spirits measures.

Imperial

In imperial units:

US

In United States customary units:

United Kingdom

Prior to metrication in the United Kingdom, the standard single measure of spirits in a pub was in England and Wales, either or in Scotland, and in Northern Ireland. After metrication, this was replaced by measures of either , at the discretion of the proprietor.

Half of a gill is a jack, or one-eighth of a pint. In northern England, a quarter pint could also be called a jack or a noggin, rather than a gill, and in some areas a half-pint could be called a gill, particularly for beer and milk.

In Scotland, there were additional sizes:

  • big gill =
  • wee gill =
  • wee half gill =
  • nip =

Ireland

In the republic of Ireland, the standard spirit measure was historically  gill. It still retains this value, though it is now legally specified in metric units as .

Isle of Man

Until 2022, a spirit measure in the Isle of Man was defined as .

In popular culture

There are occasional references to a gill in popular culture, such as in:

Literature

  • In L. Frank Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz, one of the ingredients required for a magic spell is a gill of water from a dark well. In chapter 19, the obscure unit is used for humor including a pun with the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill", which also involved a well.
  • In George Orwell's Animal Farm, Moses the Raven is allotted a gill of beer a day after he returns, with the implication that this is part of his payment for supporting the farm leaders, the pigs.
  • Dan Simmons' novel The Terror (2007) makes frequent references to gills of grog and rum.
  • In Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, there are uses of the measure gill, with Israel Hands drinking a gill of brandy in the chapter "I Strike the Jolly Roger". In Stevenson's Kidnapped the protagonist, David Balfour, is "forced" "to drink about a gill" of brandy.
  • In Melvyn Bragg's memoir Back in the Day, he recalls his grandfather in the pub with "a gill of bitter" in front of him.
  • Ian Rankin writing as Jack Harvey Blood Hunt, Barman in the highlands tells two Englishmen that they sell whisky in quarter gills.

Music

  • The cumulative song "The Barley Mow" refers to "...the pint pot, half-a-pint, gill, half-a-gill, quarter-gill...".
  • The traditional English folk song "Byker Hill" begins with the words, "If I had another penny, I would have another gill."
  • The Fall's song "Edinburgh Man" contains the line "Keep me away from the Festival and just give me a warm quarter-gill."

Television

  • A gill is also referenced in Archer season 2, episode 3 ("Blood Test") when Barry explains to Archer that a liter of blood is, "about 8 gills". (Eight gills would be , or .) A call back reference, also discussing units of blood, is further made in season 3, episode 3 ("Heart of Archness, Part 3"). In both instances, the word is pronounced with a hard ⟨g⟩.
  • In 1990's "Bart the Genius," the second episode of The Simpsons, a child tricks Bart by offering, "I'll trade you 1,000 picoliters of my milk for four gills of yours." (A picoliter is a trillionth of a liter, so Bart is losing almost a pint of milk in this exchange.)

Mispronunciation

Because of its more widely used homograph, gill has sometimes been mispronounced with a hard g sound. In English, the sound of soft ⟨g⟩ is the affricate /dʒ/, as in general, giant, and gym.

  • FX's animated cartoon Archer mispronounced gill in the episodes "Blood Test" (Season 2, Episode 3) and "Heart of Archness: Part Three" (Season 3, Episode 3).

Notes

References