Stones, pounds, feet, seven-year-olds and illiteracy
Vinny Burgoo
'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
the height of a seven-year-old child.'
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8235940/Giant-fox-caught-in-M
aidstone.html>
--
VB
Garrett Wollman
Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
>'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
>captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
>because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
>'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
>the height of a seven-year-old child.'
Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
Clearly, the male fox must have weighed 26.5 lb, and someone (probably
an editor) clumsily put the approximation in stone ahead, rather than
behind as would be proper, of the more exact measurement.
I have known many seven-year-olds in my lifetime (although none
currently), and I honestly couldn't say how high and of them were. Or
even how tall they were, for that matter. (AmE usage would be "four
feet long", in any case, but I understand BrE allows "four foot"
here.)
Oh, and the first sentence you quote has either two commas too many or
one too few. (Is that a giant fox or a Giant Fox? Would it run away
from or towards a Giant Eagle?)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Jerry Friedman
> In article <AmYzmPBfORINF...@shropshire.plus.com>,
> Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
> >'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> >captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> >because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
> >'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
> >the height of a seven-year-old child.'
[snip justified criticism]
> Oh, and the first sentence you quote has either two commas too many or
> one too few.
...
Or it's an example of Creeping Nonrestrictive That, which seems to be
natural for some Kids These Days.
--
Jerry Friedman
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
wrote:
>Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
>'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
>captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
>because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
The foxes are eating bins? That's scary. Have they mutated?
>
>'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb
"nearly two stone or 26.5lb" would be OK.
> and was four foot long, about
>the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
The fox was four foot long and as tall as a seven-year-old child? Even
more scary.
Was this fox created in a laboratory?
Perhaps it is part of a plan to re-legalise fox hunting but with the
foxes given a more equal chance. Hunting would be much more exciting if
the hounds, horses, huntsmen, huntswomen and hunt followers were at risk
of being killed and eaten by foxes.
><http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8235940/Giant-fox-caught-in-M
>aidstone.html>
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
musika
Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> typed:
Or it's short for i.e.
--
Ray
UK
Peter Moylan
Nonrestrictive "that" has long been acceptable in BrE. That doesn't
excuse the sentence, though.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Steve Hayes
Wollman) wrote:
>Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
New Year's WHAT?
eve?
day?
resolutions?
Or did they have too many New Year's drink's?
I'ver seen this dangling New Year's quite a lot recently -- is it the spread
of the greengrocers apostroph'e?
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
annily
> On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 00:19:21 +0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett
> Wollman) wrote:
>
>> Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
>
> New Year's WHAT?
>
> eve?
> day?
> resolutions?
>
> Or did they have too many New Year's drink's?
>
> I'ver seen this dangling New Year's quite a lot recently -- is it the spread
> of the greengrocers apostroph'e?
>
>
>
>
and movies).
--
Long-time resident of Adelaide, South Australia,
which probably influences my opinions.
Garrett Wollman
Steve Hayes <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 00:19:21 +0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett
>Wollman) wrote:
>
>>Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
>
>New Year's WHAT?
New Year's. The holiday. No complement is required, any more than if
I said I was going to buy some jeans at Kohl's.
Persons of a certain age and geographical affiliation will remember
when a number of national retailers changed their branding in Quebec
to eliminate the illegal English apostrophes in their trade names.
(Apparently "Canadian Tire", on the other hand, counts as an Honorary
French Word, like "stop", as far as the Language Police were
concerned.)
mb
> >>> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen,
...
> Or it's short for i.e.
Remarkable. Someone can read.
Eric Walker
> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
> the height of a seven-year-old child.'
I am unacquainted with the literary standards of the various U.K.
newspapers, but that such a thing should see print in any medium is sad.
One would think a seventh-grader would be seriously marked down for any
homework in which such an abomination appeared.
Incidentally, would some Rightpondians update me on how common the use of
"stone" is today in everyday speech or writing? I get the vague
impression that it is quaint verging on archaic, but I'm here and you're
there.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Mike Page
of the weight of human beings in UK. Medicos are metricated. Stones are
also used to describe the weight of some livestock, in the kinds of
circles where they need to do such a thing. 'Four foot long' is
acceptable informal usage. Two stone, of course, equals 28 lb. It's that
inaccuracy that jars most, for me.
We've done this before, over the years. Mr Lyle wrote a good post about
this a while back, but I can't turn it up.
--
MP
John Dunlop
> [musika:]
>
>>>>> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen,
> ...
>> Or it's short for i.e.
>
> Remarkable. Someone can read.
For that reading, I would have put a comma after "that is" and probably
stronger punctuation around the explanation:
A giant fox - that is, twice the size of a normal specimen - ...
But why not:
A giant fox, twice the size of a normal specimen, ...
--
John
Django Cat
> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long,
> about the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
Hmm, this from the paper that is said to have reported Elizabeth
Taylor's arrival in the UK with the deathless, though possibly
apocryphal, "Miss Taylor said that being in London made her feel like a
million dollars (?486,594 11s 5d)."
DC
--
J. J. Lodder
> On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 00:09:03 +0000, Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
> >
> >'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> >captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> >because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
> The foxes are eating bins? That's scary. Have they mutated?
> >
> >'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb
>
> "nearly two stone or 26.5lb" would be OK.
>
> > and was four foot long, about
> >the height of a seven-year-old child.'
> >
> The fox was four foot long and as tall as a seven-year-old child? Even
> more scary.
>
> Was this fox created in a laboratory?
Looking up variation in fox sizes,
<http://www.terrierman.com/AnnZoolFenn95.pdf>
this specimen is indeed far above average, (about 7 kg)
but not extraordinarily so.
> Perhaps it is part of a plan to re-legalise fox hunting but with the
> foxes given a more equal chance. Hunting would be much more exciting if
> the hounds, horses, huntsmen, huntswomen and hunt followers were at risk
> of being killed and eaten by foxes.
Given that even tiger hunting with nothing but spears
(Balinese style) killed few hunters, this seems unlikely.
Being kicked to death by their horses
is a much greater risk to these brave 'sportsmen',
Jan
CDB
intended. Strictly speaking, "that is" meaning "i.e." should be
followed by an equivalent form, not an adjectival phrase: "a giant
*fox* -- that is [to say], *one* [or 'a fox'] that is twice the size
of a normal specimen --".
>>
If that is the intended meaning, then the phrase is parenthetical, as
shown above, and the first "that" (which corresponds to the only
"that" in the original example) is demonstrative, not relative. The
reason for the comma that John suggests may be the understood phrase
"to say" that I added, followed by a substitute form of words, written
as if it were a quotation but without the inverted thingies.
CDB
>>
[apostrophes]
>>
> "Canadian Tire", on the other hand, counts as an
> Honorary French Word
>>
"A Danish tale, found in many places, tells of someone who notices an
apparently useless post sticking in the ground, and decides to pull it
up. As he tugs, a voice underground mutters hoarsely: 'Yes, pull,
pull. You pull, and I'll push. ...".
Nick
Just before Christmas, The Independent had an article on climate change
in which it had three or four large coloured panels with frightening
figures in them.
The first two gave figures for things like "average temperature over the
last five years" and gave a figure in Celsius with the equivalent in
Fahrenheit. The third gave "Average increase in summer temperature" as
something like 1.2 degrees C. Anyone want to guess what they put in
brackets.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Plac
> "Django Cat" <notar...@address.com> writes:
> > Vinny Burgoo wrote:
>
> >> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
> >> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> >> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> >> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
> >> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long,
> >> about the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
> > Hmm, this from the paper that is said to have reported Elizabeth
> > Taylor's arrival in the UK with the deathless, though possibly
> > apocryphal, "Miss Taylor said that being in London made her feel like a
> > million dollars (?486,594 11s 5d)."
>
> Just before Christmas, The Independent had an article on climate change
> in which it had three or four large coloured panels with frightening
> figures in them.
>
> The first two gave figures for things like "average temperature over the
> last five years" and gave a figure in Celsius with the equivalent in
> Fahrenheit. The third gave "Average increase in summer temperature" as
> something like 1.2 degrees C. Anyone want to guess what they put in
> brackets.
33.2 F.
Prai Jei
>> The first two gave figures for things like "average temperature over the
>> last five years" and gave a figure in Celsius with the equivalent in
>> Fahrenheit. The third gave "Average increase in summer temperature" as
>> something like 1.2 degrees C. Anyone want to guess what they put in
>> brackets.
>
> 33.2 F.
Should have been the other way round of course - °F in the main body of the
text and °C in brackets. Is that what you mean?
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Peter Moylan
> On Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:09:03 +0000, Vinny Burgoo wrote:
>
>> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>>
>> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
>> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
>> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>>
>> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
>> the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
> Incidentally, would some Rightpondians update me on how common the use of
> "stone" is today in everyday speech or writing? I get the vague
> impression that it is quaint verging on archaic, but I'm here and you're
> there.
An Australian perspective: I know my weight in kg but not in stone. Back
before Australia adopted metric weights, I knew my weight in stone but
not in pounds. That suggests that stones are somewhat obsolete here, but
pounds are definitely archaic.
I still remember enough about stones to know that the fox appears to be
rather light for its height, and enough about feet to know that the fox
seems terribly short for its height.
The foot survives in my memory much better than do pounds and stones.
Perhaps that's because 30cm rulers look no different from foot rulers. I
still know that my height is somewhere between five foot six and six
foot, although I would need a calculator for a more accurate answer.
Nick
> Plac set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum:
>
>>> The first two gave figures for things like "average temperature over the
>>> last five years" and gave a figure in Celsius with the equivalent in
>>> Fahrenheit. The third gave "Average increase in summer temperature" as
>>> something like 1.2 degrees C. Anyone want to guess what they put in
>>> brackets.
>>
>> 33.2 F.
>
> Should have been the other way round of course - °F in the main body of the
> text and °C in brackets. Is that what you mean?
No.
tony cooper
<inv...@peter.pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>I still remember enough about stones to know that the fox appears to be
>rather light for its height, and enough about feet to know that the fox
>seems terribly short for its height.
The measurement was length, not height. The height reference was a
comparison to the height of child.
It depends on how the fox was measured. If the measurement was
nose-tip to brush-tip, there's a lot of lightweight tail fur involved.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
John Dunlop
(BrE usage)
> 'Four foot long' is acceptable informal usage.
Not only acceptable in informal contexts but also more common than "feet"
in speech, as these figures from the spoken part of the British National
Corpus show:
<six foot> 73
<six feet> 21
<five foot> 60
<five feet> 16
Figures from the whole corpus show that "feet" is more common in writing:
<six foot> 192
<six feet> 328
<five foot> 135
<five feet> 230
--
John
jgharston
> (AmE usage would be "four feet long", in any case, but
> I understand BrE allows "four foot" here.)
The fox was four feet long.
It was a four-foot-long fox.
The child was seven years old
It was a seven-year-old child.
Note the singular/plurals and the hyphens.
JGH
Mike Lyle
Quite right as far as you go; but in high-level informal language it's
perfectly correct to say or write "The fox was four foot six inches
from nose to tail." (Masks and brushes come under a different
heading.) The smallest units appear to be treated differently, though:
but I don't know /why/ we don't seem to be free to say *"His brush was
seven inch thick, and I tipped the huntsman five penny for it, and he
spent it on two pint of beer." Only country folk now say "A hundred
mile", though; and I'm not at all sure "yard" can be used in this
singular-for-plural style.
--
Mike
Mike Lyle
Gosh! That and a bonnish mot about /Seven Pillars/ in a single day:
makes me feel like just a gnat's crotchet short of £646,579.60.
--
Mike.
Andrew B.
> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
> the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
> aidstone.html>
The printed version, for comparison:
"A fox that was twice the size of normal has been killed in Kent,
raising fears that the animals are growing larger because of an "easy
living" on food scraps
The male fox weighed two stone (12.7kg) and was four foot long, about
the height of an average seven-year-old child."
LFS
> Gosh! That and a bonnish mot about /Seven Pillars/ in a single day:
> makes me feel like just a gnat's crotchet short of £646,579.60.
>
Did you look that up or do it in your head? Currency fluctuations being
what they are, it's now only £645,279.79.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
Nick
I have a feeling that the shape of the way the inches are added makes it
more likely. "It was five-and-a-half feet long", "it was five feet and
6 inches", "it was five foot 6".
I'm trying now to remember if Spiny Norman's length was given as "twelve
foot" or "twelve feet".
R H Draney
>
>I'm trying now to remember if Spiny Norman's length was given as "twelve
>foot" or "twelve feet".
It's "feet"...the Python reference for plural "foot" was the "Buying a Bed"
sketch....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
Mike Lyle
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>In article <vum2i69o64uecj5b0...@4ax.com>,
>Steve Hayes <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 00:19:21 +0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett
>>Wollman) wrote:
>>
>>>Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
>>
>>New Year's WHAT?
>
>New Year's. The holiday. No complement is required, any more than if
>I said I was going to buy some jeans at Kohl's.
>
>Persons of a certain age and geographical affiliation will remember
>when a number of national retailers changed their branding in Quebec
>to eliminate the illegal English apostrophes in their trade names.
>(Apparently "Canadian Tire", on the other hand, counts as an Honorary
>French Word, like "stop", as far as the Language Police were
>concerned.)
>
But you must admit that "New Year's" is rather an outlier, in that no
other festival gets this treatment, as far as I know. Do you say
"Veterans'"? "Mothers'"? "George Washington's"? And there probably
isn't another well-known entity in the vicinity named "Kohl's", so
custom, context, and probability unite to make it all but certain that
you mean the shop.
--
Mike.
Vinny Burgoo
Thanks. The subs always do a good job of cleaning up Gray's copy
(leaving only the factual errors, which aren't their business, and
errors arising from her ambiguity).
--
VB
Vinny Burgoo
>On Jan 2, 5:19 pm, woll...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>> Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> >Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>>
>> >'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
>> >captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
>> >because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>>
>> >'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
>> >the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
>[snip justified criticism]
>
>> Oh, and the first sentence you quote has either two commas too many or
>> one too few.
>...
>
>Or it's an example of Creeping Nonrestrictive That, which seems to be
>natural for some Kids These Days.
That's almost certainly what it is. The Creeping Nonrestrictive That is
one of Gray's trademark errors. I don't think I've ever seen her use a
'which' with a non-restrictive clause.
Some earlier examples (ain't Zotero grand?):
'The University of St Andrews, that is leading the investigation, blamed
the highly unusual lacerations on boats.'
'They studied the nature of the injuries, that appeared to be caused by
the seals rotating against a smooth edged blade and simulated the motion
of the boats found in the areas where the seals washed up.'
'A rare moth with skull an [sic] crossbones markings, that was used to
illustrate horror film Silence of the Lambs, will be on the wing this
Halloween.'
'An increase in funding for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, that
takes up half the £3bn budget, signals support for the nuclear
industry.'
'The 'Feed in Tariff', that will pay consumers for installing renewable
energy sources, will remain at current rates until 2013 and then be cut
by £40 million.'
'Climate Sense, a loose affiliation of "climate sceptic groups", are
calling for the Climate Act, that commits the UK to cutting greenhouse
gases by 80 per cent by 2050 to be repealed.'
'Rhinopithecus Strykeri, that is known in the local dialect as monkey
with an upturned face, was found by scientists from Flora and Fauna
International investigating gibbons [sic] populations in forests up to
10,000ft above sea level.'
'The National Trust, that bought 1,500 hectares on Kinder Scout is to
invest £2.5 million in 're-wilding' the area by planting heather and
allowing bogs to fill up with water.'
'In the first conference to be called on pets and climate change,
scientists warned that the small heartworm, that kills dogs, cats and
foxes, is already on the rise in the UK with more cases appearing in the
north of the country and Scotland because of warmer wetter summers.'
'Prof Trees also said species of tapeworm, that can prove fatal to
humans, could be brought into the country if restrictions are lifted
further and temperatures are warm enough.'
'PepsiCo, that produces Walker Crisps and Quaker Oats, is already
bringing in a number of new farming techniques to cut carbon emissions
by half over the next five years on the 350 farms they use around the
UK.'
'The EU, including Britain, is considering bringing in the measure, that
will be used in the same way as gross domestic product (GDP) to
calculate a country’s wealth.'
'Dr Pope also said that new technologies, that improve the accuracy of
measurements, show that the rate of increasing temperatures over the
last ten years could be slightly more than previously estimated.'
Some of those could be interpreted as examples of the Commatosed
Restrictive, which improperly herds a properly 'that'-ed restrictive
into a parenthesis, rather than the Creeping Nonrestrictive. Sensewise,
it sometimes doesn't matter which it is, but it often makes a huge
difference. How are the subs - or her online readers - to know which
error she's committing? Was Prof Trees's warning about fatal tapeworms
or merely about tapeworms in general, some of which, the reader might be
interested to know, can be fatal to humans? Is there more than one type
of small heartworm? There probably isn't more than one National Trust or
Rhinopithecus Strykeri but how are we to know whether there's more than
one Climate Act?
She's an idiot.
--
VB
Garrett Wollman
Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Thanks. The subs always do a good job of cleaning up Gray's copy
>(leaving only the factual errors, which aren't their business,
Interesting cultural difference: one of the primary jobs of a
copyeditor at a U.S. newspaper is precisely looking for factual
errors, bias, claims not supported by the quoted sources, and suchlike
(in addition to enforcing all the zombie rules in the paper's style
guide).
Last night, C-SPAN aired an interview with the controller of BBC
Parliament, who made the claim that while a large fraction of the
British population read newspapers, they don't necessarily believe
what's in them, whereas television journalism is considered to be more
credible. I think the opposite is true here (or at best that neither
medium is considered particularly trustworthy).
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
franzi
The height of an average seven-year-old child is not four foot long, but
four foot (taking the numerical values of these measures as true).
--
franzi
Skitt
> Andrew B. wrote:
>> Vinny Burgoo wrote:
Something ain't quite right here. I'd say that a five-foot stick is
five feet long, not five foot long. A two-mile stretch is two miles
long. The fox was four feet long, but it was a four-foot-long fox. Oh,
it also had four feet, of course -- it was a four-footed fox, I'd guess.
The subs need a bit more shaping up.
--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://come.to/skitt
David Hatunen
> Incidentally, would some Rightpondians update me on how common the use
> of "stone" is today in everyday speech or writing? I get the vague
> impression that it is quaint verging on archaic, but I'm here and you're
> there.
About a decade ago my wife and I wee visiting friends near Cambridge UK.
His wife asked how much I weighed. I replied, "about 215 pounds." She
turned to her husband and asked "How much is that in stones?"
--
Dave Hatunen, Tucson, Arizona, out where the cacti grow
Vinny Burgoo
Good point. Perhaps I should have said that they make the best of a bad
job. Perhaps they weren't sure whether 'four foot long' had a technical
meaning in the world of environmentalism.
--
VB
Or perhaps they're shite too
Mike Lyle
<la...@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
>Mike Lyle wrote:
>
>> Gosh! That and a bonnish mot about /Seven Pillars/ in a single day:
>> makes me feel like just a gnat's crotchet short of £646,579.60.
>>
>
>Did you look that up or do it in your head? Currency fluctuations being
>what they are, it's now only £645,279.79.
No, I'm afraid I Googled it. I did move the decimal point myself,
though.
--
Mike.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
Wollman) wrote:
>In article <5wPdTOPB...@shropshire.plus.com>,
>Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>Thanks. The subs always do a good job of cleaning up Gray's copy
>>(leaving only the factual errors, which aren't their business,
>
>Interesting cultural difference: one of the primary jobs of a
>copyeditor at a U.S. newspaper is precisely looking for factual
>errors, bias, claims not supported by the quoted sources, and suchlike
>(in addition to enforcing all the zombie rules in the paper's style
>guide).
>
>Last night, C-SPAN aired an interview with the controller of BBC
>Parliament, who made the claim that while a large fraction of the
>British population read newspapers, they don't necessarily believe
>what's in them, whereas television journalism is considered to be more
>credible. I think the opposite is true here (or at best that neither
>medium is considered particularly trustworthy).
>
The BBC has a legal obligation to be impartial in its reporting and
comment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/how_we_govern/agreement.txt
REGULATORY OBLIGATIONS ON THE UK PUBLIC
SERVICES
....
44. Accuracy and impartiality
(1) The BBC must do all it can to ensure that controversial subjects
are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all relevant
output.
Discussions can be broadcast in which various views are expressed but
there must be balance.
The commercial broadcasting sector is subject to the Broadcasting Code:
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/impartiality/
Section Five: Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence
of Views and Opinions
Principles
To ensure that news, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy
and presented with due impartiality.
To ensure that the special impartiality requirements of the Act are
complied with.
....
Due impartiality and due accuracy in news
5.1 News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and
presented with due impartiality.
5.2 Significant mistakes in news should normally be acknowledged and
corrected on air quickly. Corrections should be appropriately
scheduled.
5.3 No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or
reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is
editorially justified. In that case, the political allegiance of
that person must be made clear to the audience.
....
....
5.9 Presenters and reporters (with the exception of news presenters
and reporters in news programmes), presenters of "personal view" or
"authored" programmes or items, and chairs of discussion programmes
may express their own views on matters of political or industrial
controversy or matters relating to current public policy. However,
alternative viewpoints must be adequately represented either in the
programme, or in a series of programmes taken as a whole.
Additionally, presenters must not use the advantage of regular
appearances to promote their views in a way that compromises the
requirement for due impartiality. Presenter phone-ins must encourage
and must not exclude alternative views.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<et.in.arca...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>The male fox weighed two stone (12.7kg) and was four foot long, about
>>the height of an average seven-year-old child."
It could be reworded as:
The male fox ... was four foot long, about as long as
an average seven-year-old child is tall."
Mike Lyle
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>In article <5wPdTOPB...@shropshire.plus.com>,
>Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>Thanks. The subs always do a good job of cleaning up Gray's copy
>>(leaving only the factual errors, which aren't their business,
>
>Interesting cultural difference: one of the primary jobs of a
>copyeditor at a U.S. newspaper is precisely looking for factual
>errors, bias, claims not supported by the quoted sources, and suchlike
>(in addition to enforcing all the zombie rules in the paper's style
>guide).
The general run of British think precision is for geeks, wimps,
pedants, nerds, prescriptivists, swots, wallies, and the foreigners
imported to clear up the resulting mess. One Guardian columnist,
mentioning a mistake he'd made the week before, said, "...anyway, I've
always wanted to appear in the /Corrections and Clarifications
Column/."
...Sorry, but you woke my hobby-horse, and it would have kicked down
the stable door if I hadn't given it a gallop.
>
>Last night, C-SPAN aired an interview with the controller of BBC
>Parliament, who made the claim that while a large fraction of the
>British population read newspapers, they don't necessarily believe
>what's in them, whereas television journalism is considered to be more
>credible. I think the opposite is true here (or at best that neither
>medium is considered particularly trustworthy).
>
Broadcast media are regulated, while print isn't really.
--
Mike.
Skitt
> franzi wrote:
>> The male fox weighed two stone (12.7kg) and was four foot long, about
>>> the height of an average seven-year-old child."
>
> It could be reworded as:
>
> The male fox ... was four foot long, about as long as
> an average seven-year-old child is tall."
Make it "... four feet long -- " and it'll be fine.
Mike Page
> Mike Lyle wrote:
>
>> Gosh! That and a bonnish mot about /Seven Pillars/ in a single day:
>> makes me feel like just a gnat's crotchet short of £646,579.60.
>>
>
> Did you look that up or do it in your head? Currency fluctuations being
> what they are, it's now only £645,279.79.
>
--
MP
Garrett Wollman
Well, broadcasters are regulated here, too, but not on the basis of
the factuality of their news coverage (if indeed they bother to do
any). They have to give their callsign and community of license once
an hour on the hour; irradiate said community with a specified
electric field; have a telephone number reachable without toll from
same (answering optional); operate at least 18 hours a day (Sundays
excepted); paint and light their tower in accordance with FAA
regulations (assuming they own the tower); use only type-approved
transmitters; maintain their Emergency Alert System devices in
correctly-configured, working order; maintain a public file at their
Official Main Studio or another location in their community of license
that is regularly accessible to the public; broadcast at least three
hours of E/I programming a week (TV only); broadcast not more than N
minutes of commercials per hour during children's programming (TV
only); and not utter or permit others to utter any of the words from
George Carlin's "Dirty Words" sketch between the hours of 6 AM and 10
PM. Nothing about fairness, accuracy, or anything of that ilk.
In a couple of months, television stations will also be required to
limit the relative loudness of advertising as compared to the
programming it's embedded in. How many of them will actually bother
to do so (given that there's no mechanism for enforcement and the FCC
doesn't generally pay attention to viewer complaints) is not clear.
Steve Hayes
Wollman) wrote:
>In article <vum2i69o64uecj5b0...@4ax.com>,
>Steve Hayes <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 00:19:21 +0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett
>>Wollman) wrote:
>>
>>>Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
>>
>>New Year's WHAT?
>
>New Year's. The holiday. No complement is required, any more than if
>I said I was going to buy some jeans at Kohl's.
Ah, like those other US holidays, Martin Luther King's, Memorial's, Labour's,
Thanksgiving's and Halloween's?
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Garrett Wollman
Steve Hayes <haye...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 06:21:50 +0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett
>Wollman) wrote:
>>New Year's. The holiday. No complement is required, any more than if
>>I said I was going to buy some jeans at Kohl's.
>
>Ah, like those other US holidays, Martin Luther King's, Memorial's, Labour's,
>Thanksgiving's and Halloween's?
No, none of them are called any such thing. (And "Labor Day" has no
"u" in it, as you well know.)
R H Draney
>
>Something ain't quite right here. I'd say that a five-foot stick is
>five feet long, not five foot long. A two-mile stretch is two miles
>long. The fox was four feet long, but it was a four-foot-long fox. Oh,
>it also had four feet, of course -- it was a four-footed fox, I'd guess.
The Arizona Republic yesterday carried a picture of a five-foot kitten up for
adoption at one of the animal shelters....r
Garrett Wollman
R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>The Arizona Republic yesterday carried a picture of a five-foot kitten up for
>adoption at one of the animal shelters....r
That's taking polydactyly a bit far, no?
Peter Moylan
>
> In a couple of months, television stations will also be required to
> limit the relative loudness of advertising as compared to the
> programming it's embedded in. How many of them will actually bother
> to do so (given that there's no mechanism for enforcement and the FCC
> doesn't generally pay attention to viewer complaints) is not clear.
Years ago, an enterprising Australian inventor marketed a device that
would turn off the sound whenever an especially loud burst was detected.
Shortly after that the advertisers voluntary reduced their loudness.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Peter Moylan
This might be pondian, because I see nothing wrong with saying that it
was four foot long.
> The subs need a bit more shaping up.
I'll agree with that, for other reasons:
- "twice the size of normal" is twice the illiteracy of
normal. Sub-editors are usually trying to save space,
so why didn't they think of "twice normal size"?
- the comparison of length with height continues to be
confusing. The way it's written, it appears to be
saying that the fox was as tall as it was long.
I'm not sure how to fix this. Perhaps the seven-year-old
child could be persuaded to lie down.
Garrett Wollman
Peter Moylan <inv...@peter.pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>Garrett Wollman wrote:
>>
>> In a couple of months, television stations will also be required to
>> limit the relative loudness of advertising as compared to the
>> programming it's embedded in. How many of them will actually bother
>> to do so (given that there's no mechanism for enforcement and the FCC
>> doesn't generally pay attention to viewer complaints) is not clear.
>
>Years ago, an enterprising Australian inventor marketed a device that
>would turn off the sound whenever an especially loud burst was detected.
>Shortly after that the advertisers voluntary reduced their loudness.
How would they do that? It's the station that controls how loud the
advertisements are. (Accurately measuring perceived loudness is
actually fairly difficult, although there are now good psychoacoustic
models that make it much easier to implement in silicon.)
In my country, television broadcasters have historically blamed the
viewers for turning their volume up during the soft parts, which
invariably immediately precede a commercial break. (In a televised
drama, low audio levels frequently correlate with rising tension;
shows are edited so as to keep audiences through commercial breaks to
the resolution of the tension.) Of course, this ignores all of the
audio processing that stations do (which in the analog domain
generally involved a multiband compressor, limiter, AGC, and/or
clipper) that has the effect of reducing dynamic range. The new law
specifies a standard for digital TV audio processing which will have
essentially the same effect.
Loud commercials on television were apparently one of the most
frequent complaints by voters[1] to their congresscritters. (The
regulator took the same "blame the viewer" line as the stations.)
-GAWollman
[1] The average voter is older than the average voting-age citizen.
The average voter who actually writes letters of complaint to their
Representative or Senator is retired or otherwise not gainfully
employed.
annily
> Garrett Wollman wrote:
>>
>> In a couple of months, television stations will also be required to
>> limit the relative loudness of advertising as compared to the
>> programming it's embedded in. How many of them will actually bother
>> to do so (given that there's no mechanism for enforcement and the FCC
>> doesn't generally pay attention to viewer complaints) is not clear.
>
> Years ago, an enterprising Australian inventor marketed a device that
> would turn off the sound whenever an especially loud burst was detected.
> Shortly after that the advertisers voluntary reduced their loudness.
>
Seriously? I'd never heard of that. And the ads are often still too loud
anyway.
--
Long-time resident of Adelaide, South Australia,
which probably influences my opinions.
Steve Hayes
Wollman) wrote:
>Loud commercials on television were apparently one of the most
>frequent complaints by voters[1] to their congresscritters. (The
>regulator took the same "blame the viewer" line as the stations.)
No doubt because they were aware that the average viewer went to the kitchen
to make coffee during the commercial breaks, and they wanted the viewers, if
not to view, at least to hear the message.
Steve Hayes
No doubt as long as an 11-year-old child.
R H Draney
>
>In article <ifuan...@drn.newsguy.com>,
>R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>The Arizona Republic yesterday carried a picture of a five-foot kitten up for
>>adoption at one of the animal shelters....r
>
>That's taking polydactyly a bit far, no?
The description said she was a little clumsy, but at seven months I think she's
still got plenty of time to figure out how to use her prolificity of limbs....r
the Omrud
> On Mon, 03 Jan 2011 07:54:39 +0000, Eric Walker wrote:
>
>> Incidentally, would some Rightpondians update me on how common the use
>> of "stone" is today in everyday speech or writing? I get the vague
>> impression that it is quaint verging on archaic, but I'm here and you're
>> there.
>
> About a decade ago my wife and I wee visiting friends near Cambridge UK.
> His wife asked how much I weighed. I replied, "about 215 pounds." She
> turned to her husband and asked "How much is that in stones?"
I think that is the reaction you would get from the vast majority of
Brits. 215 pounds means nothing whatsoever to me in relation to a
person's weight, but I can divide by 14. Presumably the lady thought
her husband would make the calculation more quickly than she could.
--
David
Peter Moylan
> On 2011-01-04 16:49, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> Garrett Wollman wrote:
>>>
>>> In a couple of months, television stations will also be required to
>>> limit the relative loudness of advertising as compared to the
>>> programming it's embedded in. How many of them will actually bother
>>> to do so (given that there's no mechanism for enforcement and the FCC
>>> doesn't generally pay attention to viewer complaints) is not clear.
>>
>> Years ago, an enterprising Australian inventor marketed a device that
>> would turn off the sound whenever an especially loud burst was detected.
>> Shortly after that the advertisers voluntary reduced their loudness.
>
> Seriously? I'd never heard of that. And the ads are often still too loud
> anyway.
>
penetration, but it must have started a few people thinking. I got the
impression that the TV stations put a lot of thought into how to defeat
such a device.
I believe that the ads are not as loud now, in most cases, as they used
to be. Unfortunately the ones that are still too loud are usually the
ones that are seriously crass, that use irritating voices, or are in
some other way offensive. They stick in our minds more than the
reasonable ones. Which is the point, of course; it's well known that
irritating ads are more effective than discreet ones.
Of course, it's possible that I'm seeing a biased sample. Most of the
advertising I see is on ABC or SBS. When I switch over to the commercial
stations, I'm likely to turn off the TV after only a few minutes.
Katy Jennison
Due to AmE influence I now know my weight in pounds as well as in stone
and kilos. But I, too, can't immediately visualise other people's
weight in pounds (in the way in which "fourteen stone" immediately
conjures up an approximate size of person). The best I can do is "about
twice my size".
This morning an Australian, being interviewed about the flooding, said
something like "The water's expected to rise to nine point something
metres, so we've got about another eight inches to go."
--
Katy Jennison
the Omrud
We are having a new carpet throughout the ground floor, plus the stairs
and landing. I measured roughly, to get an idea of the price, then a
man came round to give us a quotation. He measured the house in feet
and inches, even though carpet is sold by the square metre.
--
David
Mike Lyle
That's because the Chinese cynically started stockpiling them when
Humph died. But, hey! That's market forces for you.
--
Mike.
Amethyst Deceiver
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>In article <AmYzmPBf...@shropshire.plus.com>,
>Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>>
>>'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
>>captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
>>because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>>
>>'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
>>the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
>Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
>
>Clearly, the male fox must have weighed 26.5 lb, and someone (probably
>an editor) clumsily put the approximation in stone ahead, rather than
>behind as would be proper, of the more exact measurement.
>
>I have known many seven-year-olds in my lifetime (although none
>currently), and I honestly couldn't say how high and of them were. Or
>even how tall they were, for that matter. (AmE usage would be "four
>feet long", in any case, but I understand BrE allows "four foot"
>here.)
I have one in the house right now and I couldn't tell you how tall or
high he is. Taller than a 5yo because his age 5 trousers are suddenly
showing ankle, but shorter than most of the 6yos and all the 7yos in
his class at school.
Roland Hutchinson
> On 03/01/2011 07:54, Eric Walker wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:09:03 +0000, Vinny Burgoo wrote:
>>
>>> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>>>
>>> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
>>> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
>>> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>>>
>>> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long,
>>> about the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>>
>> I am unacquainted with the literary standards of the various U.K.
>> newspapers, but that such a thing should see print in any medium is
>> sad. One would think a seventh-grader would be seriously marked down
>> for any homework in which such an abomination appeared.
>>
>> Incidentally, would some Rightpondians update me on how common the use
>> of "stone" is today in everyday speech or writing? I get the vague
>> impression that it is quaint verging on archaic, but I'm here and
>> you're there.
>>
>>
> In every day speech, stones and pounds are still the standard measures
> of the weight of human beings in UK.
Clarification for leftpondians who have never stepped on a righpondian
bathroom scale: that's stones and pounds as it feet and inches: a whole
number of stones and pounds for the part of a stone that's left over.
Brits have no more feel for what how large a 187-lb. man is than we do
for one who weighs 13 stn 5 lb.
> Medicos are metricated.
Not here in the good ol' USA! I just got on a very fancy scale at the
doctor's this morning. It even calculates your BMI (which _is_ based on
metric units) -- after the assistant inputs your weight in pounds and
height in inches. (I'm sometimes amazed that we do medications in
milligrams -- possibly the only metric unit the average American ever
actually uses? I suppose the need to conform with -- and sell to -- the
rest of the world led us to give up our scruples rather early in the
phamaceutical realm.).
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
tony cooper
What does the face of a house scale look like? Does it register both
pounds and stone?
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Jerry Friedman
> In alt.usage.english, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>
>
> >On Jan 2, 5:19 pm, woll...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
> >> Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >> >Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>
> >> >'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> >> >captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> >> >because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>
> >> >'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
> >> >the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
>
> >> Oh, and the first sentence you quote has either two commas too many or
> >> one too few.
> >...
>
> >Or it's an example of Creeping Nonrestrictive That, which seems to be
> >natural for some Kids These Days.
>
> That's almost certainly what it is. The Creeping Nonrestrictive That is
> one of Gray's trademark errors. I don't think I've ever seen her use a
> 'which' with a non-restrictive clause.
Weird. Although to the relief of millions, there are two here:
(Yes, a lot of Christmas-hit collections are rubbish.)
She's probably not responsible for this headline of one of her
articles, explained by the subhead.
"Parakeets now outnumber native British birds after escaping into the
wild
"Parakeets have reached record numbers in the UK, outnumbering native
species such as kingfishers, barn owls and lesser-spotted [sic]
woodpeckers."
> Some earlier examples (ain't Zotero grand?):
[Snip--too painful to see again. Self, look into Zotero.]
> She's an idiot.
No argument.
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
wrote:> >> In article <AmYzmPBfORINF...@shropshire.plus.com>,
> >> Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >>> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
> >>> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
> >>> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
> >>> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
> >>> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
> >>> the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>
> > [snip justified criticism]
>
> >> Oh, and the first sentence you quote has either two commas too many or
> >> one too few.
> > ...
>
> > Or it's an example of Creeping Nonrestrictive That, which seems to be
> > natural for some Kids These Days.
>
> excuse the sentence, though.
Learn something every day.
--
Jerry Friedman
Mike Page
that has stones with intermediate divisions of lbs and, often, another
scale with kilos. Digital scales have a switch so that one can choose
between stones and lbs or kilos.
--
MP
Jerry Friedman
Volts, amps, watts, kilo- and megahertz, liters (water and pop
bottles), c. c. (engine capacity, maybe not used by the /average/
American), kilometers (for running and cycling, ditto).
> I suppose the need to conform with -- and sell to -- the
> rest of the world led us to give up our scruples rather early in the
> phamaceutical realm.).
Thereby showing at least a minim of sense.
--
Jerry Friedman
Peter Moylan
But, to answer the question I think Tony was asking, there is no option
that would display 187 pounds. The pounds only go up to 13.
That's for British scales. My own scales have kg on the main scale and
lb on the subsidiary scale, with stones not included; but I think they
were made in China.
I used to have digital scales (showing only kg), but I threw them out
because they were so wildly inaccurate.
I've just realised that my kitchen scales are also dual measurement,
going up to 2 kg or 5 lb. I'm not sure why. Perhaps the pounds are there
for people with old recipe books. I have to start afresh with new recipe
books at the end of each marriage.
Peter Moylan
> Not here in the good ol' USA! I just got on a very fancy scale at the
> doctor's this morning. It even calculates your BMI (which _is_ based on
> metric units) -- after the assistant inputs your weight in pounds and
> height in inches. (I'm sometimes amazed that we do medications in
> milligrams -- possibly the only metric unit the average American ever
> actually uses? I suppose the need to conform with -- and sell to -- the
> rest of the world led us to give up our scruples rather early in the
> phamaceutical realm.).
I remember a time when we bought a printer for our computer at work, and
then had to import special paper, because the sheet feeder couldn't
handle A4. A serious case of false economy, because of course the
postage cost for the American paper really added up.
Today's printers are a bit more flexible, but then I guess none of them
are built in the USA any more.
Robert Bannister
But there's no way I could divide by 14 in my head quickly enough for
conversation. The best I can do is realise that it is close to 2 cwt and
so near to 16 stone.
--
Rob Bannister
Skitt
> the Omrud wrote:
>> David Hatunen wrote:
>>> Eric Walker wrote:
>>>> Incidentally, would some Rightpondians update me on how common the use
>>>> of "stone" is today in everyday speech or writing? I get the vague
>>>> impression that it is quaint verging on archaic, but I'm here and
>>>> you're
>>>> there.
>>>
>>> About a decade ago my wife and I wee visiting friends near Cambridge UK.
>>> His wife asked how much I weighed. I replied, "about 215 pounds." She
>>> turned to her husband and asked "How much is that in stones?"
>>
>> I think that is the reaction you would get from the vast majority of
>> Brits. 215 pounds means nothing whatsoever to me in relation to a
>> person's weight, but I can divide by 14. Presumably the lady thought her
>> husband would make the calculation more quickly than she could.
>
> But there's no way I could divide by 14 in my head quickly enough for
> conversation. The best I can do is realise that it is close to 2 cwt and
> so near to 16 stone.
Multiplying by .07 will get you pretty close.
--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://come.to/skitt
Garrett Wollman
Peter Moylan <inv...@peter.pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>That's for British scales. My own scales have kg on the main scale and
>lb on the subsidiary scale, with stones not included; but I think they
>were made in China.
I have a bathroom scale that is switchable for pounds, kilograms, or
stone-and-pounds. (Bought in the U.S., but probably made in China
like everything else in the stores these days.)
>I've just realised that my kitchen scales are also dual measurement,
>going up to 2 kg or 5 lb. I'm not sure why.
Probably because they were made for the world market, and if they want
to sell into the world's largest-for-now economy they'd bettter have
pounds and ounces. Not that there's much of a market for kitchen
scales here, except for the devotees of St. Alton Brown of Atlanta.
-GAWollman
Garrett Wollman
Peter Moylan <inv...@peter.pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>Today's printers are a bit more flexible, but then I guess none of them
>are built in the USA any more.
Haven't been for a decade or more, at least for those that sell in
non-negligible quantities. They would cost five times as much if
built in a developed country with labor rights and environmental
standards.
David Hatunen
> On 3 Jan 2011 21:20:59 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>The Arizona Republic yesterday carried a picture of a five-foot kitten
>>up for adoption at one of the animal shelters....r
>
> No doubt as long as an 11-year-old child.
As long as an 11-year-old girl does what?
--
Dave Hatunen, Tucson, Arizona, out where the cacti grow
R H Draney
I did it by noting that 215 is close to 210, which is one-and-a-half times
140...if that didn't occur to you, you might start with the knowledge that 14
squared is 196 and work from there....
This may help explain why I didn't use the scratch paper provided for me when I
took the Mensa qualifying exam....r
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:18:47 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> On 3 Jan 2011 21:20:59 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>>>The Arizona Republic yesterday carried a picture of a five-foot kitten
>>>up for adoption at one of the animal shelters....r
>>
>> No doubt as long as an 11-year-old child.
>
>As long as an 11-year-old girl does what?
Dances with foxes?
Mike Page
....
> We are having a new carpet throughout the ground floor, plus the stairs
> and landing. I measured roughly, to get an idea of the price, then a man
> came round to give us a quotation. He measured the house in feet and
> inches, even though carpet is sold by the square metre.
>
designed his own home he made all the rooms multiples of standard carpet
widths. But that was a long time ago.)
When we bought carpet recently, it was priced both by the square yard
and the square metre, but that was probably because it looked a lot
cheaper by the square yard.
--
MP
Cheryl
> Roland Hutchinson wrote:
>
>> Not here in the good ol' USA! I just got on a very fancy scale at the
>> doctor's this morning. It even calculates your BMI (which _is_ based on
>> metric units) -- after the assistant inputs your weight in pounds and
>> height in inches. (I'm sometimes amazed that we do medications in
>> milligrams -- possibly the only metric unit the average American ever
>> actually uses? I suppose the need to conform with -- and sell to -- the
>> rest of the world led us to give up our scruples rather early in the
>> phamaceutical realm.).
>
> I remember a time when we bought a printer for our computer at work, and
> then had to import special paper, because the sheet feeder couldn't
> handle A4. A serious case of false economy, because of course the
> postage cost for the American paper really added up.
>
> Today's printers are a bit more flexible, but then I guess none of them
> are built in the USA any more.
>
someone accidentally or deliberately changes the paper size setting and
no one else can remember how to re-set it. The same effect happens with
the photocopier, only worse, because it's used by many more people than
any of the printers so it's harder to find out who mucked it up this
time and try to get them to fix it, if they can remember how to do it.
I'm surprised how few people in this situation actually get the manual
and read it. It's usually attached to or near the machine in question.
--
Cheryl
Cheryl
In Canada, stuff like that has to be priced both ways, but is very often
- almost always - produced in the same widths as they were back in the
pre-metric days. Other items, like food and toothpaste, are often but
not always packaged in metric sizes. I guess whether it is or is not
depends on whether it was originally prepared for the US market or not.
Food sold in bulk is weighed in metric, but signs give the price
prominently in pounds and not so prominently in kilograms.
--
Cheryl
the Omrud
> On 04/01/2011 12:37, the Omrud wrote:
> ....
>> We are having a new carpet throughout the ground floor, plus the stairs
>> and landing. I measured roughly, to get an idea of the price, then a man
>> came round to give us a quotation. He measured the house in feet and
>> inches, even though carpet is sold by the square metre.
>>
> But is it manufactured in feet and inches? (I remember when my Dad
> designed his own home he made all the rooms multiples of standard carpet
> widths. But that was a long time ago.)
Nope. The carpet we chose comes in rolls of 4m and 5m wide. One of the
jobs of the quotation man was to decide which width would be most
efficient for cutting out the various shapes. He did this on paper
while sitting on our stairs. He said he'd been doing it that way for 20
years.
> When we bought carpet recently, it was priced both by the square yard
> and the square metre, but that was probably because it looked a lot
> cheaper by the square yard.
I don't think they showed the price by the square yard, but I didn't
look closely.
--
David
the Omrud
Divide by 7 and then halve it.
--
David
Mike Barnes
>Peter Moylan wrote:
>> I remember a time when we bought a printer for our computer at work,
>>and
>> then had to import special paper, because the sheet feeder couldn't
>> handle A4. A serious case of false economy, because of course the
>> postage cost for the American paper really added up.
>> Today's printers are a bit more flexible, but then I guess none of
>>them
>> are built in the USA any more.
>>
>They are more flexible, but irritation and consternation ensue when
>someone accidentally or deliberately changes the paper size setting and
>no one else can remember how to re-set it. The same effect happens with
>the photocopier, only worse, because it's used by many more people than
>any of the printers so it's harder to find out who mucked it up this
>time and try to get them to fix it, if they can remember how to do it.
>
>I'm surprised how few people in this situation actually get the manual
>and read it. It's usually attached to or near the machine in question.
In the early days of photocopiers there were two paper sizes in common
use in the UK - quarto and foolscap (very roughly equivalent to American
letter and legal). Our office photocopier was used for both but had only
one (internal) paper tray. It happened quite frequently that people
would assume that the 'right' size paper was loaded and therefore create
a copy on the wrong size of paper. This was inconvenient and expensive.
A solution was devised. Someone created an indicator that was taped to
the front of the machine. It was a piece of cardboard marked 'quarto'
and 'foolscap' with a cardboard swivelling pointer attached. Quite a
work of art. If it indicated the 'wrong' paper size, you changed the
paper and the indicator. Simple.
Then I saw one of the less bright members of staff encounter this
indicator for the first time. "That's clever", he said. But somehow he
imagined it to be a lot cleverer than it really was. He just swung the
cardboard needle over to the other position and proceeded to make
photocopies on the wrong sized paper.
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England
Jerry Friedman
> On 05/01/2011 09:13, Mike Page wrote:
>
> > On 04/01/2011 12:37, the Omrud wrote:
> > ....
> >> We are having a new carpet throughout the ground floor, plus the stairs
> >> and landing. I measured roughly, to get an idea of the price, then a man
> >> came round to give us a quotation. He measured the house in feet and
> >> inches, even though carpet is sold by the square metre.
>
> > But is it manufactured in feet and inches? (I remember when my Dad
> > designed his own home he made all the rooms multiples of standard carpet
> > widths. But that was a long time ago.)
>
> Nope. The carpet we chose comes in rolls of 4m and 5m wide. One of the
> jobs of the quotation man was to decide which width would be most
> efficient for cutting out the various shapes. He did this on paper
> while sitting on our stairs. He said he'd been doing it that way for 20
> years.
Were you so impressed that you went to the foot?
--
Jerry Friedman
LFS
<applause> I'm impressed that a Leftpondian beat me to that!
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
the Omrud
I may live in Warrington (land of George Formby) but I'm not actually
Northern, so it didn't occur to me. I'll try to remember it on the next
appropriate occasion.
--
David
bob
> In article <lv45i6tvqij440tt9cjmuqff54vqvun...@4ax.com>,
> Steve Hayes <hayes...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 06:21:50 +0000 (UTC), woll...@bimajority.org (Garrett
> >Wollman) wrote:
> >>New Year's. The holiday. No complement is required, any more than if
> >>I said I was going to buy some jeans at Kohl's.
>
> >Ah, like those other US holidays, Martin Luther King's, Memorial's, Labour's,
> >Thanksgiving's and Halloween's?
>
> No, none of them are called any such thing. (And "Labor Day" has no
> "u" in it, as you well know.)
I have some Canadian family who most definitely would include a "u" in
the name of the end-of-summer long weekend.
Of course, when I came back to work on Tuesday, plenty of my German
colleagues greeted me with a "Fröhes Neues", so it's not just the
British who abbreviate their holiday names in ungrammatical ways (and,
strangely enough, nobody in the coffee room that morning was asking
what this new thing was that was being talked about).
Robin
bob
For clarification, if I were actually describing this man in
conversation, I would probably say he is "thirteen stone five" in the
same way that I might suggest he is "six foot two", without actually
stating the units of the lesser divisions.
Robin
bob
For an analogue dial type, you have large numbered divisions at 1
stone intervals, with 13 smaller markings (not numbered) between
them. Many also show kg.
Robin
bob
A standard jam jar in the UK contains 454 grammes. I'm sure there are
plenty of similar examples...
Robin
Adam Funk
> In the early days of photocopiers there were two paper sizes in common
> use in the UK - quarto and foolscap (very roughly equivalent to American
> letter and legal). Our office photocopier was used for both but had only
> one (internal) paper tray. It happened quite frequently that people
> would assume that the 'right' size paper was loaded and therefore create
> a copy on the wrong size of paper. This was inconvenient and expensive.
>
> A solution was devised. Someone created an indicator that was taped to
> the front of the machine. It was a piece of cardboard marked 'quarto'
> and 'foolscap' with a cardboard swivelling pointer attached. Quite a
> work of art. If it indicated the 'wrong' paper size, you changed the
> paper and the indicator. Simple.
>
> Then I saw one of the less bright members of staff encounter this
> indicator for the first time. "That's clever", he said. But somehow he
> imagined it to be a lot cleverer than it really was. He just swung the
> cardboard needle over to the other position and proceeded to make
> photocopies on the wrong sized paper.
Wow, amazing cardboard technology!
--
Some say the world will end in fire; some say in segfaults.
[XKCD 312]
Skitt
I guess different minds work in different ways. Multiplying 215 by .07
seems simpler to me. I can "see" the result instantly -- 2 * 7 is 14,
and 15 * 7 adds another 1 (close enough), so the result is 15.
R H Draney
>
>Of course, when I came back to work on Tuesday, plenty of my German
>colleagues greeted me with a "Fröhes Neues", so it's not just the
>British who abbreviate their holiday names in ungrammatical ways (and,
>strangely enough, nobody in the coffee room that morning was asking
>what this new thing was that was being talked about).
By Japanese standards it was still a solecism...you never wish someone a Happy
New Year except on January first, and even then only the first time you meet
them on that day....
(Then you sit down and eat your mochi, which in my haste to get to the Changing
Hands annual 25%-off book sale I forgot to do, thereby ensuring my ill luck for
the rest of the year)....r
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 2011-01-03 15:52, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 00:19:21 +0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett
>> Wollman) wrote:
>>
>>> Did the Torygraph's subeditors imbibe rather too much for New Year's?
>>
>> New Year's WHAT?
>>
>> eve?
>> day?
>> resolutions?
>>
>> Or did they have too many New Year's drink's?
>>
>> I'ver seen this dangling New Year's quite a lot recently -- is it
>> the spread of the greengrocers apostroph'e?
>>
> It seems to be common usage in the US (if we can believe their TV
> shows and movies).
It goes back a fair ways. At least to the early nineteenth century:
If all the money that is expended in too sumptuous entertainments,
and in riotous feasting and intemperate drinking, throughout the
United States, on Christmas and New Year's, the Fourth of July and
the annual Thanksgiving, were devoted to religious charities, it
is not extravagant to believe, that in twenty-five years from this
day, it would produce a great an permanent melioration of the
religious state of our country, would send the Gospel to many
pagan nations, and, within a century, would be the means of saving
millions of immortal souls.
_The Missionary Herald_, March, 1819
A man named John Ward, whose family reside at No. 7 Prospect-
street, Brooklyn, has been missing since the evening before New
Year's. He is 38 years of age, and has followed the business of a
boat man on Brooklyn ferry, but was not so engaged on the evening
of his disappearance. Any information of him will be thankfully
received by his afflicted family.
_The Telescope_, January 21, 1826
There are quite a few Google Books hits starting in the 1820s.
Possible predecessors are things like
The allowance of a quarter of a rupee each day for Christmas, new
year's, and the King's birth day, to be drawn for each man present
with the corps on those days, except such as are in the hospital,
agreeably to the former pay table.
entry dated 1798 in _A Compilation of All
the Government and General--Government--
General--Brigade and Garrison Orders--
Minutes of Council--Commands of the Hon.
Company--or Regulations, from Whatever
Authority Promulgated, from the Year 1750
to the 31st of July 1801, that are now in
force and operating on the Discipline or
Expenditure of the Bombay Army_, 1801
It's hard to tell in the construction whether "day" is intended to be
distributed as "Christmas [day], new year's [day], and the King's
birth day" or whether "Christmas", "new year's", and "the King's birth
day" were separate named days.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Your claim might have more
SF Bay Area (1982-) |credibility if you hadn't mispelled
Chicago (1964-1982) |"inteligent"
Robert Bannister
> Probably because they were made for the world market, and if they want
> to sell into the world's largest-for-now economy they'd bettter have
> pounds and ounces.
For a moment, I wondered why China would want pounds and ounces, but I
see it is still only lying second.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
But you've got to admit that, for this particular example, two times 112
is a lot easier.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Andrew B. <bul...@gmail.com> wrote
>> On Jan 3, 12:09 am, Vinny Burgoo <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Louise Gray (who else?) in The Telegraph:
>>>
>>> 'A giant fox, that is twice the size of a normal specimen, has been
>>> captured in Kent, sparking fears that the animals are growing larger
>>> because of "easy living" on bins and scraps.
>>>
>>> 'The male fox weighed two stone or 26.5lb and was four foot long, about
>>> the height of a seven-year-old child.'
>>>
>>>
>>> aidstone.html>
>>
>> The printed version, for comparison:
>>
>> "A fox that was twice the size of normal has been killed in Kent,
>> raising fears that the animals are growing larger because of an "easy
>> living" on food scraps
>>
>> The male fox weighed two stone (12.7kg) and was four foot long, about
>> the height of an average seven-year-old child."
>>
> There's certainly an infelicity in stating that a length is a height.
> The height of an average seven-year-old child is not four foot long, but
> four foot (taking the numerical values of these measures as true).
Frederick the Great delighted in his "lange Kerle" (long blokes or tall
guardsmen).
--
Rob Bannister
R H Draney
Yabbut the common German word for "tall" *is* "lang"...if he were Spanish he
would have called them "high" instead....
Cue old story about the morons standing on each other's shoulders trying to
measure a flagpole..."the boss said to find out how tall it is"..."why don't you
just take it out of the hole and lay it on the ground to measure it?"..."no, he
asked how tall, not how long"....r
Jerry Friedman
The Rightpondians here can collectively take credit.
--
Jerry Friedman