Nips and Sticks

I always thought it was a third of a pint. Some pubs in this area sell really strong beer in "nips" as an alternative to halves and pints, especially when those have a large price tag.

Tony. snipped-for-privacy@morgan5000.fsnet.co.uk

My mistake, thanks for the correction!

In the North-east at least, a traditional "gill" was HALF a pint (I'm sure unofficially!).

The quoted site is American. Those damned Yankees only have 16 fluid ounces in their piffling little pints and I *think* their fluid ounces are different from ours as well. Z

Slightly larger, actually. An American pint is about 17 oz Imperial.

Ah, you mean approximately the same volume as the big brewers and pubcos want us to accept as a full "pint"

I always wondered where they got the idea.

In the north west too (Salford to be precise) I often used to hear a half pint referred to as a gill. I think that terminology has largely died out amongst the younger generation though.

Gavin

Frank Erskine31/12/04 4:10 PM

I always thought that a gill was a third of a pint. In the old days (I'm also from the N.E.) we had crates of free school milk delivered which came in small foil topped glass bottles. I have always thought that they were gills. Could be wrong though.... Milk was also sold in half pints back then but those bottles were bigger than the school bottles.

CR

I certainly remember school milk, but have never heard of the bottles containing a gill.

In England a Gill is a quarter of a pint, however, just to make life easy, in Scotland 4 gills equals (or did equal) .75 of an imperial pint. Hence you are probably all correct!

Regards

Stuart Hudson