Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi guys,

My friend is a maths teacher. His Year 9 class asked him some interesting questions today.

Here they are:

Am I 6 foot tall or 6 feet tall? Which is the correct English and why?

How about 5 foot 9? Is it plural or singular and why?

Also, any idea why we use "lbs" as an abbreviation for "pounds"?

Does anyone have any simple answers for his Year 9 class?

6 foot or 6 feet- 6 feet tall is right because you need the plural with a number, but I'm not sure why 5 foot 9 is right.
lbs.- I know that the Spanish word for pound is libra, so I think that there's some sort of conection with the Latin word, but I couldn't tell you why we use lbs instead of pds (?).
English is a confusing language.

I just thought of a difference for 6 foot and 6 feet. If you're using the size as an adjective, it's six foot (ex. a 6 foot tall tree). If you use 'to be' with the size, it's feet. (ex. He is six feet tall.)

The short form lbs. comes from the Latin for the Roman unit of weight, librae.