the stone that weighed a stone

Some thirty years ago, when he was just a young adult, my brother visited Ireland with a friend.

Since they wanted to move around the island freely, they drove my brother's car all the way from Italy. Their English was minimal but enough to get by while traveling and they really enjoyed the trip.

While visiting the Cliffs of Moher, my brother became fascinated by Liscannor stones and decided to purchase a flagstone from a local quarry to bring back to my dad (who had a lifelong passion for stones and geology in general). He was, however, concerned about the weight of the stone, since they had a long way back to Italy and didn't want to tax the car too much. With their basic English, they asked the quarry worker: "How much weight is stone?" The guy replied: "A stone."

My brother and his friend looked at each other in puzzlement, then decided it must have been a question rather than an answer. "Yes. We buy only one stone," they clarified. "One stone," confirmed the worker. "Yes, right," said my brother. Silence ensued.

So they tried again: "How much weight is ONE stone?" The puzzled worker, probably thinking they were not just foreigners but a bit on the dim side too, repeated, enunciating slowly: "A stone."

My brother was just on the verge of deciding the guy was a total jerk by the time it finally became clear that "a stone", in addition to describing the thing itself, was also a unit of measurement. (equivalent to a little more than 6 Kg.)

So,"the stone that weighed a stone" finally got purchased, travelled to Italy and to this day graces the garden path of the house that used to be my parents' and now belongs to my brother. As you can see, after many years and a lot of foot traffic, it is still beautiful and one can still clearly see the squiggly fossilized marks left by creatures feeding on the sea floor in the Carboniferous era.

The story of the Liscannor stone was also a favorite with my nephews when they were little and a great way to teach them about cultural barriers and differing points of view. :))

For more details on the geology of the Liscannor stones: www.cliffsofmoher.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Cliffs-of-Moher-Geology.pdf