Harley-Davidson, The New Metric Cruser

what it's origin is, I haven't the faintest idea, but it's a cockney expression which might be politely rendered as 'oh, surely not' or 'haven't you got anything better to do with your time' .... 'this discussion is pointless' perhaps, although it's meaning is somewhat more Anglo-saxon


for our colonial cousins, a cockney is someone from the East End of London, reputedly born within the sound of Bow bells. They traditionally speak a strongly accented, rapid-fire patois with a distinct Yiddish influence ( cf the transposed v and w sounds found in Dickens' cockney characters ). Cockney is thought by some to consist largely of rhyming allusions, and while there is a certain amount of truth in this, it also contains a good deal of alliteration, free association of words and mispronounced foreign words ( East London being a major port until the 1960s ) so that expressions of no apparent meaning are fairly common. Cockneys are widely represented as crafty and idle, thieves, rogues and sharp traders, particularly in street markets or selling stuff which has 'fallen off the back of a lorry' . Dickens' 'Artful Dodger' is a typical example, Del Trotter the epitome of the type

[Pa]

I read many Dickens novels as a youngster. I enjoyed them all. Pa

Thank you for the explanation, and for a new phrase which I will certainly work into a few conversations over the holidays. “Stone the Crows”

The ports of East London you say. I wonder if I could get a set of ½” Metric Sockets down there?
Thanks again 45Brit. You and yours have a great holiday. -Steve

steady on the Dickens... his version of cockney is based on an older form and for one thing, doesn't contain the 'glottal stop' ( bo'l'a' wa'er = bottle of water ) or the flat vowels ( ah nah brahn cah = how now, brown cow, another common joke about BBC pronounciation ) which most people asociate with cockney. Eliza Doolittle of Shaw's 'Pygmalion' is much nearer the real thing, she also has the recursive speech patterns typical of a cockney .. multiple repetitions and the apparent overalpping so that you seem to be holding about three conversations simultaneously.

it's also closely related to the Australian accent, because Oz was originally settled by convicts from London and Kent ( London being the principal port for the Souther Hemisphere in those days ) and subsequently reinforced by assisted passage emigrants, mostly from the same area, up to the 1960s

Actually the whole 'sound of Bow Bells' thing is a traditional joke related tothe kid's song 'Oranges and lemons'

the East End is predominantly Bangla Deshi these days so I would reckon you could buy just about anything you cared to name there.....

it's also closely related to the Australian accent, because Oz was originally settled by convicts from London and Kent


You Brits are always talking about these "Convicts". You conveniently forget to mention that most of the "Convicts" were Irish who were arrested for trying to force the invading brits out of their country. So, for the most part the original inmate/residents of Australia were Irish.

[Pa]

This topic is beginning to stray a bit. Some of my most trusting friends are from Austrailia and England. U.S., France, Germany, Belgium, Chechz Republic, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Ireland [both], Sweden, Norway, Poland, the list is long, hold many trusted friends as well. Most of them are members here. Simply put............. Stick to bikes. Let us keep the history lesson direction on bikes so no offences will be made or felt. Thanks, Pa

The 08 Models are held together with metric fasteners. Maybe its time to start hoarding old nuts and bolts? It was bound to happen at some point. As long as they hold the machines together as they are intended, that is the only true interest I have.

Neither the S.A.E. nor the Metric standards are better or worse than the other. They are both just different ways of describing a unit of measurement.

Having made my living in the machining trade for the past 35yrs. I admit that I’m partial to the S.A.E. standard because I am comfortable with it. Machinist are creatures of comfort, therefore we tend to reject new ways of doing things. I still know old-timers who refuse to use a carbide tip tools. Try and convince them carbide is better than H/S, you just won’t be able to.

Metric is here to stay. Resistance is futile; those who resist will be assimilated. -Steve

[Pa]

No use hording standard threaded fasteners. They can easily be made. Hord the tooling such as taps and dies. I prefer H.S. cutting tools for some applications, especially when using conventional metal cutting machines. Sharp H.S. tool bits [with lubricant] for radius or groove placing, makes for ease of peeling the material away, leaving behind a very nice unpolished finish. Polishing afterward becomes a breeze then. CNC and NC machines are best suited for modern tool bits because of axis control and superior speed/feed control. I found the major difference, not counting production numbers, between H.S. and modern tooling is tool pressure upon the work piece. A correctly ground H.S. tool bit will have un noticable tool to work piece pressure, while on the other hand, modern tooling is under extreme tool to work piece pressure. Both with pressures measured at depth of cut and feed of cut. Modern tooling distorts the work piece continuiously throughout the machining process, though most distortion can be removed on finish pass. There are also variables btween the materials used in a work piece from yesteryears and today. Tooling changes reflect those material changes. Production numbers and machines do also. I knew a man who would use only forged tooling. He was a perfect example of your paragraph above. Pa

Awww Gee, pa
I was finding the cockney discussion very interesting. I learned a bit that I thought I was familiar with, but now know a bit more. I found the bent thread very interesting.

Awww Gee, pa
I was finding the cockney discussion very interesting. I learned a bit that I thought I was familiar with, but now know a bit more. I found the bent thread very interesting.

Cor luv a duck, it's these modern lathe tools,they'll bend anything guvner.

[Pa]

go on then... who knowa what 'ornages and lemons' means ? It's like quiz night at the Dog & Duck on here.....

G'day to all from down under,
Convicts and Dickens aside, just bought the kids a Chinese Honda copy minibike (couldn't find another HD X90 or Shortster) and you guessed it- 90%+ S.A.E.!!!
Go figure! So the kids are sharing the Big Twin tools and I'm just confused . "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.......
later
harrison

P.S. I believe "Stone the crows!" is original an Australian expression, not Cockney, but I stand to be corrected.

I wouldn't be dogmatic on the matter.

London was the principal port for sea travel to and from Australia from the very beginnings till the 1960s, there have always been a fair number of Australians in London and because London was a manufacturing and trading wage-economy from a very early date, cockneys were proverbially willing to try their luck more or less anywhere when things were not going well at home, down to the 'ten pound tourists' of the post-war period.

certainly the Australian accent is phonetically similar to the older styles of cockney

You are mistaking the rough, almost informal pre-metric and early imperial systems of distance and weight measurements, for threadforms which really are what we are really concerned with here.

Threadform standards did not appear until the industrial revolution. The first one was the Whitworth system - Whitworth supposedly, in 1840 or so, made huge 3" diameter metal shafts, layed out the threads mathematically, then set his apprentices to filling out the grooves, in order to make the leadscrews on which all the smaller threads were based. The US about 10 or so years later came up with a simpler threadform to facilitate production, which was widely adopted by the railroads and machine tool manufactures, and eventually became the basis of the US standard theadforms we use now. There was no official metric standard for threadforms until almost 1900!

Ironically, the best of all these threadforms was the original whitworth! With its rounded peaks and flattened angles it is stronger and considerably more fatigue resistant than either metric or USS. If you look at some of the new special fatigue-resistant threadforms the aerospace industry is using, you will note they are very close to BSW.

Last Paragraph Removed !!!!!!!!!

Pa wrote:

You are all missing a few valuable points here in this topic, at least IMO.... First off, a small bit of history lesson can reveal the use of the , if I may say, SAE system, here in the United States. Initially, when control and governed by the crown, before the U.S. bacame the U.S., and several years beyond, the metric system, was the system in use here.