For what it's worth, and without wishing to provoke the sort of robust
response that has characterised recent exchanges, I've simply been having a
look through my dictionnaries and examining origins and accepted usages. I
did this in the full knowledge that common usage and abusage can lead to all
sorts of local and regional variations, particularly in specialised
industries like mining, and that etymology is not an exact science.
Chaldron apparently derives from "chaudron", the French for cauldron, which
in turn comes from the Latin "caldaria", also meaning a cauldron or cooking
pot, which in turn was a derivation of the Latin adjective "calidus",
meaning hot. The earlier "chalder" derived from the French "chaudiere" (a
boiler or kettle), has similar Latin roots.
In both Latin and French, the cauldron or cooking pot meaning also came to
be used to describe the contents, as in "a pot full", "a pan of stew", etc.,
but always in the sense of volume or capacity, rather than weight.
My Shorter OED describes "chalder", superseded by "chaldron", as "a Northern
word brought to London with the coal trade". It is described as an obsolete
dry measure of capacity: in Scotland 16 bolls or 64 firlots of corn; for
lime and coal 32 to 64 Imperial bushels; in England, 32 to 40 bushels.
So, it seems to me that the general interpretation of chaldron was one of
volume, but it would I'm sure be natural on occasion to translate this into
weight when calculating loads, etc. A perhaps not very good modern parallel
is my builder, who constantly interchanges the terms tons and cubic metres
when talking about concrete, since he is interested in how far it will go,
while the lorry driver who delivers it is more concerned about weight.
This may not help at all, in which case I'll probably get a rude reply.
John
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