Quart

Jun. 11th, 2012 10:59 am
jack: (Default)
[personal profile] jack
I always thought "quart" referred to a quarter of a gallon (presumably whatever the local gallon is). Wikipedia seems to agree.

But in one of the Patrick O'Brian books, the characters seem to refer to it as a quarter of a pint. Did I misread it? Or did the usage change over the last 200 years (or vary regionally)? Or is there a mistake by the copyeditor or author?

(Or possibly by the character saying it, although that seems unlikely.)