The Smoot is a unit of measurement developed in 1958 at MIT. As a prank, a fraternity there grabbed one of there pledges, Oliver Smoot, one night and used him to measure the length of the Mass Ave bridge (from Cambridge to Boston near Fenway Park). They turned him end to end and kept count all the way across the Charles River.

They marked off the bridge in partial Smoots and wrote the total length at the end of the bridge. The length was 364.4 Smoots plus or minus 1 ear.

The bridge was re-done in recent years and the measurements were allowed to stay as a part of Boston lore. A couple of years ago, Oliver Smoot's grandson was accepted at MIT but chose to enroll elsewhere as he did not want to repeat the prank. Also, the word "smoot" is now listed in the American Heritage Dictionary.

Some night, maybe a group of message-boarders will kidnap Dawuane Smoot and calibrate the Hart Bridge with him.

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