On 19/07/2013 11:31 PM, Stephen wrote:
> They used lemons which are a better source of vitamin C.

The daft thing is, blackcurrent is even better.

(Although I'm not sure how long that would last at sea...)

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clipka wrote:
> 
> BTW, does anyone outside the world of printed circuit board design ever
> use the measurement "mil"?
> 

Yes.


Swedish use it as a synonym for 10 kilometers. :-)

-Aero

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > three seventy-seconds of one inch
>
> I think that at least *some* Americans realize how ridiculous the
> imperial measurement system is. It's a petty that resistance to change
> is such a huge psychological phenomenon that it's not going to change
> any time soon.
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

I actually had a laugh at the "three seventy" vs the usual "seventy three".  or
did he mean "3 x seventy-seconds"?

then again, I'm used to it from Sherlock Holmes books :)

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On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 10:45:38 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 20/07/2013 3:29 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Well, I'll cop to my source being John Lloyd for that, and it wouldn't
>> be the first time that I'd seen/heard something in one of his books
>> that I knew wasn't quite correct.
>>
>>
> True. I would think that there is a team of researchers being used for
> QI.

There is - they talk about it on the official site (and in the books). :)

>> OED cites an example from 1888 as its earliest citation, but OED
>> doesn't always have the earliest, since the quotations are just
>> examples. But it does confirm something I thought was the case, which
>> is that it wasn't common to the US, but more common to other colonies,
>> notably Australia, New Zeland, and South Africa. At least as an
>> "English Immigrant".
>>
>>
> Our "received wisdom" is that it was Poms for Brits in the antipodes.
> But you never can tell.

That's one of the goals QI has, though - to challenge the received 
wisdom. ;)

But clearly they don't always get it right. :)

>> In the US, the term comes along later (or at least the earliest quote
>> citing it is later, 1918), referring to an English or British sailor.
>> That actually does match up with the information in the Second Book of
>> General Ignorance (the quotation uses "lime-juicer" to refer to the
>> ship,
>> and "limeys" to refer to the sailors).
>>
>>
> Jack Tars, this side of the pond. Me lad!
> Oo Arr!
> 
> BTW Did you know that Avast! Me hearties. Actually means "Stop what
> you're doing"?

I didn't - well, I knew "Avast" was a way of saying "stop", but beyond 
that I didn't. :)

>> But Mr. Fry doesn't do the research, generally, for QI.  I don't know
>> that Lloyd does that much of it any more, either.;)
> 
> Mr. Fry says more than his prayers, when he wants to impress. IMO.

Given his lack of religious convictions, that's pretty easy to achieve, 
don't you think? ;)

Jim

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On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 18:33:06 -0400, nemesis wrote:

> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>> Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> > three seventy-seconds of one inch
>>
>> I think that at least *some* Americans realize how ridiculous the
>> imperial measurement system is. It's a petty that resistance to change
>> is such a huge psychological phenomenon that it's not going to change
>> any time soon.
>>
>> --
>>                                                           - Warp
> 
> I actually had a laugh at the "three seventy" vs the usual "seventy
> three".  or did he mean "3 x seventy-seconds"?
> 
> then again, I'm used to it from Sherlock Holmes books :)

3/72 is what was meant (not sure if you were not getting that, or being 
silly)

Jim

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> BTW, does anyone outside the world of printed circuit board design ever
> use the measurement "mil"?

3M use mils for thickness of optical films - if it wasn't for the large 
difference in scale then it would have been very confusing.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 18:33:06 -0400, nemesis wrote:
>
> > Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> >> Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> > three seventy-seconds of one inch
> >>
> >> I think that at least *some* Americans realize how ridiculous the
> >> imperial measurement system is. It's a petty that resistance to change
> >> is such a huge psychological phenomenon that it's not going to change
> >> any time soon.
> >>
> >> --
> >>                                                           - Warp
> >
> > I actually had a laugh at the "three seventy" vs the usual "seventy
> > three".  or did he mean "3 x seventy-seconds"?
> >
> > then again, I'm used to it from Sherlock Holmes books :)
>
> 3/72 is what was meant (not sure if you were not getting that, or being
> silly)
>
> Jim

I think that if you are not used to the system it is easy to read it as three
times seventy seconds. Then when you realise what is meant you laugh at your
embarrassment at getting it wrong.
It is great how English words change their meaning depending on their context.

Stephen

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 10:45:38 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>
> > Mr. Fry says more than his prayers, when he wants to impress. IMO.
>
> Given his lack of religious convictions, that's pretty easy to achieve,
> don't you think? ;)
>





Stephen

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> It is great how English words change their meaning depending on their context.

Not just English - more or less every human language ever invented! ;-)

I especially enjoy how "and" sometimes means "or", and "or" sometimes 
means "and". No wonder students suck at Boolean algebra! :-D

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> I especially enjoy how "and" sometimes means "or", and "or" sometimes
> means "and". No wonder students suck at Boolean algebra! :-D

After an hour of boolean algebra our teacher announced that people with 
birthdays in April and May should stay behind. Obviously a few people 
stayed behind only to get yelled at :-)

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