What do you call the piece of equipment that shows you your weight by standing on it?
Thanks in advance
Thanks in advance
A piece of equipment for showing weight
- Thread starter strange boy
- Start date
"Would it be ok if I just said "scale?
Yes.
Thank you all
As long as the context made it clear that it is that kind of scale. Such as "He stepped on the scale to see if he had lost weight."
Not in BE. It is usually plural (like trousers, scissors, etc.) The plural comes from days when scales looked like this:
A quick search of amazon.co.uk for bathroom scales yielded this. Many of the individual items are called "scale" and some are called "scales". Is this due to Amazon leading the Americanization charge, or to BE speakers not knowing that scales used to have two pans but seeing that there is only one item on the bathroom floor that they weigh themselves on, I wonder?Not in BE. It is usually plural (like trousers, scissors, etc.) The plural comes from days when scales looked like this:
I put the terms into Google Ngram: eng_gb_2012,bathroom scales: eng_gb_2012,bathroom scale: eng_us_2012,bathroom scales: eng_us_2012 As the local BE rep, please take out a few adverts in local papers putting people right.
Ah, those are grocery scales.
Yes, those are scales. I was looking for them in the supermarket the other day to weigh some apples and I remember asking, "Where have you hidden the scales?"
Surely you mean "grocery scale's"
Both of themAh, those are grocery scales.
? I only see one.(Now I do know what one scissor or one trouser looks like, and a binocular has two eyepieces, so a pair of binoculars has four
)
Fish have scales. If there is just one grocery scale do you say, "This is the scales"?Ah, those are grocery scales.
No, I say "These are the scales". I presume the plural comes from considering the device to be not a pair but a set of scales, referring to the balancing mechanisms hidden inside.
A spring scale might qualify as singular because it doesn't have balancing mechanisms, but I'd guess that those who call a single weighing device "scales" will tend to use the plural for all kinds irrespective of what makes them tick.
A spring scale might qualify as singular because it doesn't have balancing mechanisms, but I'd guess that those who call a single weighing device "scales" will tend to use the plural for all kinds irrespective of what makes them tick.
See #8
As sdg reminds us, even on androids and iPhones, we dial, and we turn the volume up by pressing a remote.
If you are looking for a scale on scales, it is the figures representing the weight around the dial.
So a blank LCD screen is a "scale" even before it displays the weight?If you are looking for a scale on scales, it is the figures representing the weight around the dial.
I'm sure people will continue to use scales if that's what they grew up with, and scale if that's what they grew up with. Logic probably won't enter into it!
No, but it has the potential to show a point on a scale. How that is limited depends on the scale of the scale on the scales.
In my experience we call a device for determining weight a scale; the context tells us what sort of scale it is and what it looks like. If I put my potatoes on one in the supermarket, you know it's not the same sort of device as the one I was directed to step on in my doctor's office or the one on which my package is weighed to determine the necessary postage.
OK, forget set, pair it is, and it's etymologically related to bowls, i.e. the dishes, one for the goods, the other for the reference weights.
As for the digital ones, typically based on strain gauges, don't they have reference weights inside so that the device can recalibrate itself? Otherwise, how on Earth (!) are they going to work on the Moon?
Note the "often plural" -- this would appear to be BE-specific.WRD (Collins Concise) said:
As for the digital ones, typically based on strain gauges, don't they have reference weights inside so that the device can recalibrate itself? Otherwise, how on Earth (!) are they going to work on the Moon?
No, they don't! Only the really really expensive analytical scales might provide reference weights and auto-calibration. And yet, even those scales need be regularly calibrated with external reference weights to ensure proper and accurate operation at the specific location where it is used. (temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, gravitation, and Earth's magnetic field can play havoc when you're trying to accurately measure down to milli- and micro-grams. Don't even think about the Moon!)