So a C, an Eb, and a G walk into a bar but the bartender tells them,
“Sorry we don’t serve minors.”
So the C and G send the Eb home and walk back into the bar.
Once again the bartender confronts them.
“Sorry, you can’t come in here with your own open fifth.”
For Europeans a fifth is 750ml bottle of spirit 1/5th of gallon
OH! and something to do with music.
For us in the U.S., that’s what a fifth is, too – a perfect size for drowning sorrows, celebrating the untimely death of a monied in-law, or debauching maidens.
um, I think he was explaining it because we don’t use the term “fifth” in europe, not because Americans use 750ml bottles or 1/5th of a gallon…
Hi Gonzo
the explanation was for the europeans because we don’t use
the old fractional measures we use the 21st. Century metric measures
even in the old shires of England.
Thanx Chrisof
What’s a perfect fifth?
- A full bottle of whisky.
What’s a diminished fifth?
- An empty bottle of whisky.
Thanks to all for the clarification, as it was somewhat ambiguous as to whether he was addressing Europeans or telling us that 750 ml was what a fifth meant to Europeans. And I have no idea how anyone else measures their booze; it’s all I can do to measure mine own.
It’s unfortunate that the term “fifth” is probably going to die out, because it’s a crackling good word and a lot less of a mouthfull then “seven hundred fifty milliliters,” which sounds effete and affected and is way too much to have to say when you need a drink. Soon, it will just be us old gomers who use it, and our grandchildren will give us a patronizing smile, pat us on the head, and force feed us another spoonful of gruel.
In the U.S., we pretended to be metric for about two weeks back in the 70s, but it was way too complex for us. Now we have 2-liter soft drinks and those damnable 750 ml liquor bottles, but we get our milk in quarts and gallons and half gallons, as god intended.
By the way, that 750 ml bottle is short of a fifth by .00187 gallons, which means I’m getting screwed.
I blame the French.
You getting screwed, gonzo? Right. And Brittney is getting her Ph.D.
Around here we don’t really talk about 750ml or whatever. We just point at the bottle and say “can I get that bottle of vodka/whisky/rum” please. Or there’s the “quarter bottle”, “half bottle”, “bottle” and “thon big bottle”.
Aw snap! 
Rimshot!
BTW that was a great joke DIAGNOLINE.
Well, I hesitate to be the one to point out the obvious fallacy in this, but someone must.
If the bottle is 750 ml, what’s the point in just halving and quartering it? A “quarter bottle?” No wonder you have to ask for it by pointing and grunting! Who could remember 187.5 ml? How did this become an improvement?
See, this is why it’s all so confusing. Now you can see why we gave up after 2 weeks.
Look, here’s an example from my own fridge. Sitting right there in that handy door shelf is a pint of half-and-half: 473 ml. Now, I am not going to go asking for 473 ml of cream. Or 946 ml. Or 236.5! That’s just plain silly. We went from perfectly good measures that everyone understood to little cubes. Before, at least, ounces were round. Now we have to measure things in little cubes and remember huge numbers for what everything comes as . . . the sizes never changed! Just what they were calling them did! And all those little cubes are smaller, so we’re getting less!
And how big, exactly, is a “thon?” I don’t remember them mentioning thons. I’m sure, though, that if they had, the experiment would have lasted only one week instead of two.
The last remnant of Splendid Isolation has got to be the pride US Americans take in their backward parochialism.
I’ve got to throw in with the Lamb on this one. Switching from a true fifth to 750 ml is really not a big deal, and I’ll accept it grudgingly and still call it a fifth, even though I know some Frenchman is making off with my additional .00187 gallons of liquor every time I buy a bottle. But, and this is crucial, all of my recipes call for pints and cups and tablespoons, and if sour cream startes coming in 450 ml or 500 ml, it’s going to screw up my Jiffy corn casserole. Let the engineers and scientists have their metric system; I welcome that because I’m tired of having to maintain two sets of socket wrenches to take care of a Plymouth and a Toyota. But stay the hell out of my kitchen.
I never really worried about the size of my thon until I started putting on weight. Now “Gee” is the last thing on my mind … 
djm
Fair enough. Although I’d love to publish a metric Joy of Cooking… 
Groan… that’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it.
you will have to accept the change to metric eventually so you may as well start now 
Then you will be better prepared for the new metric 10 note scale.
Metric pipes 
who will be the first on your block 
Yammer yammer.
Here’s a recipe for chocolate chip cookies in metric:
0.53232353325 liters all-purpose flour
4.92892161 ml baking soda
4.92892161 ml salt
0.236588237 liters butter, softened
(may use 236.588238 ml instead)
177.4411785 ml granulated [white] sugar
177.4411785 ml packed brown sugar
4.92892161 ml vanilla extract
2 eggs
0.473176421 liters NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
118.294119 ml chopped nuts
The little handles on the spoons would have to be huge fit all those numbers on them.
significant figures, Flydood, significant figures…
Metric Pipes? No, but I already make metric whistles.
15mm and 21mm diameter.