When I was a young one there were allways 16 sausages in a lb. Recently bought 454 g of sausages and there were only 12 in the package. Isn't 454g nearly the same as a lb? Anyone mature posters out there notice the same?
Ye olde 16 sausages to the lb most likely applied in a butcher's shop, where the sausages were counted out and then weighed. I'm sure it varied around the lb mark all the time. Packaged sausages need to adhere to the weight printed on the packet, so they aren't as flexible. So depending on the weight of each individual sausage (as another poster said) the count would vary.
It does depend on the size of the sausage of course, but to my mind we always got 16 to the Libra, then again, sausages were shorter then - now they are longer !
Just noticed - is this not a Shooting the breeze sort of question ??