Stones

In a store for runners, the assistant selling the shoes indicates that a certain one is for persons of 12 stones or more. Huh? Yes, a person of 12 stones or more.

Evidently, a "stone" is a unit of weight--part of the Imperial system (along with pounds instead of kilograms, feet instead of meters, etc.)--equaling 14 pounds. So those shoes were for persons weighing more than 168 pounds.

A few days later I was conversing with an elderly woman who told me she lost a stone in the park. At first I thought she dropped a piece of jewelry, but then I recalled the educational experience in the shoe store. Indeed, her point was that by walking around the park every morning, she lost weight!

This is good...one's weight can fluctuate a few pounds here and there but one remains approximately the same stone...