The Three Foot Rule

When I was bound apprentice, and learned to use my hands, Folk never talked of measures that came from foreign lands: Now I'm a British Workman, too old to go to school; So whether the chisel or file I hold, I'll stick to my three-foot rule. Some talk of millimetres, and some of kilogrammes, And some of decilitres, to measure beer and drams; But I'm a British Workman, too old to go to school, So by pounds I'll eat, and by quarts I'll drink, and I'll work by my three-foot rule. A party of astronomers went measuring the earth, And forty million metres they took to be its girth; Five hundred million inches, though, go through from pole to pole; So let's stick to inches, feet and yards, and the good old three-foot rule.