For most of the world, the metric system does a good job with measuring weights and distances. The US is still struggling along with imperial measures but most folks seem happy measuring their height based on the length of the foot of a king who died in England hundreds of years ago, or so one story of the origin of the foot goes.

Regardless of what method you use, there are common units like miles or kilometers but there are also some much more obscure units of measure out there measuring things you never imagined. 

10. A Smoot is Equal to 5 Feet, 7 Inches 

In 2011 the people of the internet discovered the smoot when Google Earth allowed users to measure distances using it. It was nestled right between nautical miles and degrees on a drop-down menu of measures with no explanation whatsoever. Few people knew what it was and so it inspired blog posts and a little bit of research from the curious.

The smoot was named for Oliver Smoot. It measures Smoot’s height which is five feet and seven inches. In 1958, Mr. Smoot was at MIT and pledging a fraternity there. As part of the ritual humiliation that goes along with pledging a frat, Smoot had to do something dumb. He, along with other pledges, were taken to a bridge and told they needed to measure the length of it but one of them had to be the ruler. That ruler was Smoot so every one of him that it took to span the bridge was one smoot in length.

Smoot lay down on the bridge, and someone marked the top of his head with chalk. He got up and laid down on the chalk mark and they measured again and so forth. The bridge ended up being 364.4 smoots long, plus an ear, so it took a while. 

9. A Butt Is An Old-Timey Way to Measure Wine

You may have heard someone in passing refer to a large quantity of anything as a buttload. For instance, if you walked into a room and saw 100 cats you might say “that’s a buttload of cats.”  It sounds like a sanitized but semi-dirty way of referring to a lot. But it isn’t. A butt is a real measurement.

A butt is equal to two hogsheads which is just as unhelpful as saying one butt, but at least it’s colorful.  A hogshead is a barrel and you can buy them for whiskey right now, if you want. One hogshead is 250 liters or 66 gallons. That means a butt is 500 liters or 132 gallons. That, in turn, means that a buttload is a lot. That’s backed by science.

Butt doesn’t mean the butt we think of, in this case. It’s a very old word that comes to English by way of Italian and French where it originally meant boot. The Italian word boote is still used for wine. 

The other fun thing about butts and hogsheads is that they’re not always consistent in size. For instance, while one source sells a hogshead at 66 gallons, others list it as 54 gallons. That should make a butt 108 gallons, but in the US it’s 126 gallons. Now you know why no one uses it as a measurement.

8. Slug is a Unit of Mass

Slugs aren’t just slimy guys living under dead logs, they’re also units of measurement. Slug is a unit to measure mass and works out to about 32.2 pounds or 32.17 at sea level. What do you measure with slugs? You need to get into physics for that. 

A pound is a measure of force rather than mass, which is confusing outside of physics. We use pounds for weight because weight measures the force of gravity. A pound is the force required to accelerate one slug at one foot per second squared. This is something you’ll never need to know if you don’t know it already. 

7. The Word Megadeath Refers to Nuclear Death Tolls

Have you ever heard of ’80s metal band Megadeath? Their name is, well, metal. Very metal. So metal that probably few people ever wondered where it came from because it sounds like the kind of compound word any metalhead in the 80s might have thought up after a night of beers with buddies. But that’s not the case! Megadeath is not a made-up band name, it’s a unit of measure which, by definition, is now the most metal unit of measure ever.

When you’re a person who has to predict the aftermath of nuclear wars, you come up with some weird business jargon and that’s what happened here. A megadeath is a unit of measure used to describe deaths, in millions, after a potential nuclear explosion. So if Chicago has a population of 2.6 million and it was obliterated by a nuke, then your fatalities clock in at 2.6 megadeaths. 

Now, you might be asking yourself, why would anyone use this incredibly ridiculous term to minimize the death toll of a horrible atrocity and, well, you might have answered it at the same time. 

6. A Cuil is a Measure of Surreality

People tend to overuse the word surreal when describing pretty much anything that isn’t completely mundane. Trips are surreal, getting a job is surreal, and meeting a celebrity is surreal. In basic terms, the word just means something weird or bizarre, but more properly it should refer to something that seems separated from reality, like a dreamscape. Surreal things are not rational.

Because surreal is a quality you can ascribe to a thing, someone came up with a unit of surreal measurement. This seems appropriate since, as mentioned, people often call fairly non-surreal things surreal as well. How can you tell the difference between boring surreal and really, really surreal? Use the Cuil.

Cuils are not technically real forms of measurement for surreality since this is all theoretical stuff, anyway. The creation of the Cuil is part of an absurdist look at how bad search engines are. A Cuil is one level of abstraction away from reality so each cuil is one additional level of absurdity from what should be normal. 

Cuil was a search engine from 2008. It had indexed 120 billion web pages and was supposed to be a rival to Google. It lasted till 2010 which is impressive considering how bad it was. This is where Cuil the measurement came into play because Cuil the search provided such nonsensical and irrelevant results it became a joke that it was so absurd as to be surreal. Just how far from what you wanted to see could Cuil get? And so a joke form of measurement was born that spawned Cuil Theory which you can read about if you like very bizarre stuff. 

5. A Noggin Is Either a Half Pint or Quarter Pint

If you’re the sort of person who likes to drink but also has a keen interest in how much they’re drinking, then you may be aware of the noggin. A noggin is a unit of measurement that works out to about a half pint, except when it doesn’t. It was also a quarter pint for a while and then they upgraded it. It’s also the same as a gill. None of this is confusing, right?

A noggin is also equal to 142 cubic centimeters, which is about 0.6 cups. That’s also 4.8 ounces so just over three shots’ worth. It’s honestly hard to tell what anyone was measuring with noggins.

4. Poronkusema is How Far a Reindeer Can Walk Before it Needs to Pee 

Did you know that reindeer cannot walk and pee? That’s significant for Finnish reindeer herders because it gave rise to the measurement called the poronkusema. One poronkusema is the distance a reindeer can travel before it needs to pee. It’s about 7.5 kilometers, or 4.7 miles. The fact that this remains so remarkably consistent that they could set a measurement by it is pretty impressive when you think about it.

Translated to English, poronkusema means (roughly) reindeer piss. So that makes sense. It’s not clear if anything is measured in poronkusema besides how far a reindeer can go, but maybe if they have long hikes you can tell a buddy it’s going to be six reindeer pees and they’ll have a rough idea of when to expect you.

3. Millihelen is a Tongue-in-Cheek measurement of Beauty

Scientists often have a geeky sense of humor and that led to the creation of the Millihelen, which is a unit of beauty measurement. The Helen here is Helen of Troy who, according to legend, was quite beautiful. The face that launched a thousand ships, they called her. Appropriately, then, millihelens deal with the beauty needed to launch a thousand ships where one single Helen gets the job done and less beautiful folks must deal in the millihelen fractions. 

One millihelen can launch one ship and is, of course, metric. 500 would be considered an average and, at this point, you realize it’s just being used to grade women’s looks on a 1-to-10 scale. Whether the myth of Helen’s beauty was referring to literal ships or some metaphorical ones, if you catch our meaning, is up to debate. 

2. A Micromort Measures a One-in-a-Million Risk of Death

We covered the horror of a megadeath already but there’s another cutesy horror in the world of death and that’s the micromort. Isn’t it adorable? Like a tiny little grim reaper. While a megadeath is one million deaths, a micromort deals with the risk of death, and, in this case, one micromort equals a one-in-a-million chance to die. One study during COVID-19 suggested that deaths from illicit drugs rose to 1 micromort per day, up from 0.5 the year before. 

Outside of COVID, micromorts have been around since the 1980s to offer a shorter way to say “you have a one in a million chance of being eaten by wild dogs,” or whatever the long shot death might be. For instance, your chance of dying while scuba diving? That’s five micromorts. Pretty low! Base jumping is 430 micromorts, though. 

In terms of nuclear war deaths — because why not discuss that? — it was determined that your chances of dying from a nuke in London, England in 2022 were about 0.01 micromorts. So, you know, probably not happening. Also, in case you’re wondering, on any given day the risk for the average young adult is one micromort. 

1. Batman is a Unit of Measure From the Ottoman Empire

The single greatest unit of measure in mankind’s history is the Batman. A Batman weighs 16.7 pounds, so it’s clearly not the bulked-up Christian Bale version. It also dates back to the 14th century, so that makes it closer to Adam West.

Used in Central Asia, there were many regional Batmans of varying sizes, so that makes it seem more like the Spiderverse. As one of many units of measure, it fit into the trade of the day much like a bushel or a kilogram or something else might work today. Many smaller measures could be added up to make a Batman, and no doubt a few Batmans added to something even bigger like a Darkseid or some such.

Wars aren’t always won by traditional units fighting in strict formations, even if they still do the bulk of the work. Military commanders throughout history have experimented with unusual, specialized units that don’t fit into any conventional military role, often to great success. 

10. Ghost Army

The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops – or the ‘Ghost Army’ – was activated on January 20, 1944 as a secretive, highly-specialized unit of the US Army during WW2. Not all of them were combat specialists, or perhaps even good at fighting, as it wasn’t originally conceived as a conventional force. Comprising over 1,000 soldiers and 82 officers hired from professions ranging from art to sound design, the Ghost Army was instead responsible for large-scale deception operations, like building entire fake regiments and sending false radio messages to the Germans, usually to support conventional Allied offensives. 

It might sound something like wartime set design, though these guys were usually working right on the front lines. On top of that, they were particularly targetted by the Germans, making it one of the more dangerous positions on the European front. Still, it was a largely successful unit, especially on D-Day. By one estimate, the Ghost Army might have saved the lives of anywhere between 15,000 – 30,000 American soldiers throughout the war. 

9. Ritchie Boys

‘Ritchie Boys’ is a recently-coined term, referring to a loose group of more than 11,000 operatives trained at Camp Ritchie near Cascade, Maryland during the Second World War. Many of them had escaped from Europe due to persecution or the outbreak of the war, and their mastery of European culture and language made them invaluable assets for the Allied war effort.

The Ritchie Boys were rigorously trained in many fields, especially espionage and interrogation, and sent back to Europe to work against the Nazis. While they operated independently and more like a decentralized spy ring than an actual unit, they were still quite effective throughout the war. Ritchie Boys provided the bulk of all intelligence gathered on the Western Front on the allied side, including crucial early information about the scale of the Holocaust. 

8. Unit 9900

Unit 9900 is a special operations unit of the Israeli Defense Forces, responsible for providing intelligence to other units and carrying out covert operations. Established in the mid-1970s, it’s an elite, secretive unit that has played a significant role in a number of high-profile missions, including the assassination of Palestinian militant leaders and rescue operations. It’s also involved in gathering intelligence on a variety of topics, including terrorist activities, weapons proliferation, and foreign policy.

One of its many subunits is the Roim Rachok, which specifically seeks out individuals on the autism spectrum to tap into their unique skills and abilities, making them well-suited for tasks like identifying tiny details in raw, satellite images. According to the IDF itself, the program is still active and successful, and the unit works alongside other parts of Unit 9900 to meet Israel’s unique defense challenges. 

7. Paradogs

Paratrooper dogs played an integral role in the success of the Allied forces during the landings at Normandy. While many people would probably go ‘aww’, there was nothing cute about what they were there to do. These British dogs were trained to target enemy positions, carry supplies, and sniff out explosives wherever they could, putting them right in the middle of the action during the high- risk operation. 

A big part of their training included getting accustomed to loud explosions and flying bullets, as they were dropped alongside human paratroopers on the day of the invasion – June 6, 1944 – and experienced the same dangerous conditions as the soldiers. Sadly, not all of them made it back out alive and had to be replaced by other dogs to complete the mission. These paradogs proved to be invaluable throughout the invasion, and many were even decorated for their bravery after the war. 

6. Mamluks

The Mamluks were a military class that rose to prominence during the Islamic era in the 13th century. Originally recruited as personal bodyguards for royal members of the Ayyubid Caliphate, they gained power due to the ongoing decline of the Islamic empire at the time, especially in Egypt. From 1250 to 1517, the Mamluk dynasty would rule over much of Egypt and Syria, with Mamluk soldiers making up the bulk of its military strength. 

Unlike other unit types, the Mamluks were almost-exclusively recruited from slaves of Turkic or Caucasian origin. They were a formidable force, known for their skills and achievements on battlefields across the Middle East and beyond. The Mamluks were instrumental in repelling Mongol attacks in Egypt and Syria, as their victory at  Ayn Jalut in modern-day Israel put a decisive end to the Mongol advance westwards – something that seemed impossible for most armies at the time.

5. Monuments Men

The Monuments Men were a loose unit of 345 men and women from 13 countries, working as a part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives effort launched by Allied nations in 1943. Their primary role was the documentation, preservation, and restoration of the cultural heritage of Europe, particularly artwork and infrastructure targetted by the Nazis, as they considered almost all cool types of art to be inferior.

The group included concerned citizens as well as soldiers from around the world, including curators, architects, art historians, and other academic experts. They usually worked on or near the front lines, making it a rather dangerous job for, say, an art historian. Regardless, the Monuments Men played a crucial part in the preservation and retrieval of many notable works, including the April, 1945 raid at a salt mine full of gold, art, and other Nazi valuables in Thuringia, Germany. 

4. Immortals

The Immortals – first mentioned by Herodotus in the 5th century BC – were an elite military unit of the Persian army during the Achaemenid Empire, lasting from 559-330 BC. It was made up of exactly 10,000 hand-picked soldiers, extensively trained in all forms of combat to protect the king and his family. Whenever a member died, he was replaced by another soldier in the same role and position, making it seem like the unit was immortal.

It wasn’t just a PR stunt, either. The 10,000 Immortals were a fearsome force on the battlefield, with their body armor made of overlapping bronze and iron plates like the scales of a fish, leather-covered shields of wicker and wood, and their main weapon of choice, the six-foot-long spear.

The Immortals were a largely successful fighting unit, serving in the main forces of the Achaemenid Empire until Alexander’s decisive victory at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. Despite the defeat, Alexander regarded the Immortals as an elite, respectable unit, and even attempted to keep them intact as a fighting force after his conquest.  

3. Tunnel Rats

The Tunnel Rats were a unit of US and South Vietnamese soldiers during the Vietnam War. Most of them were volunteer specialists, tasked with clearing out the vast network of tunnels in Vietnam and Laos used by the Viet Cong. Their primary roles included looking for and disabling booby traps, close-quarters combat, and intelligence gathering. 

As you can guess, it was a dangerous and terrifying job, and they were usually only equipped with bare-bones equipment like flashlights, small pistols, and knives. The tunnels were often elaborate and made of several chambers and levels, and the full extent of the network was only known to Viet Cong fighters and some locals. Apart from enemy combatants, members of the unit also had to fight off venomous snakes and other animals like bats and spiders. 

2. Potsdam Giants

Named after the city of Potsdam in what is now Germany, the Potsdam Giants were an elite unit of exclusively-tall soldiers recruited by Prussian King Frederick William I in the early 18th century. Selected for their physical strength and tall stature, the Giants were primarily used to showcase Prussian military might at parades and other public functions, though they were also a potent fighting force when needed. 

The official name of the unit was The Grand Grenadiers of Potsdam, and many historians have also called it an early experiment in eugenics. To maintain the regiment, Frederick William experimented with selective breeding techniques – like only mating existing members with tall women. He also had a specialized rack to stretch the soldiers to make them even taller, which sometimes resulted in their deaths, as one would reasonably expect. By the time he died in 1740, there were over 2,5000 Potsdam Giants in the city, and the unit wouldn’t be fully dissolved until 1806.  

1. Sacred Band Of Thebes

The Sacred Band of Thebes was an elite military unit of the ancient Greek city-state of Thebes. Created by a Theban general called Gorgidas, it was made up of 150 gay couples, totalling to an exact 300 men. Gorgidas believed that the love between the members would make them more loyal and fearsome in battle, and rightly so, too. It was one of the more successful units of the time, first gaining fame under general Pelopidas at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. 

While they might sound like the inspiration for the movie 300, the Sacred Band was actually opposed to Spartans in real life. In fact, the unit was instrumental in ending Spartan hegemony in ancient Greece, back when it was still a loose, geographical grouping of independent city states. Unfortunately, the Sacred Band would be dissolved after the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, when the Macedonian army – led by Philip II and his son, Alexander – crushed the combined forces of Thebes and Athens.