Has anybody else noticed how there is a tendency for writers to express the size of things relative to other, incongruous, things? Fair enough you might say but increasingly I’m finding myself nonplussed. I just read of a planet from another solar system that is apparently several thousand times further away than Mars. As I’ve never made the journey to Mars, I have little idea of what distance said planet may be, except that it is a long way away; as planets are apt to be. I imagine that travelling to Mars would take about the same time as our annual drive to Cornwall took in the 1970s, but I’m guessing.I have also similarly informed that the average car these days is built so well that it could drive to the moon before the engine gives up. When I look at the moon, I have no means of judging whether it’s very, very big and a very, very long way away; or whether it’s just fairly big and a fairly long way away. Never having attempted to drive to the moon (not least due to the problem of reaching escape velocity in a Skoda), it doesn’t mean much to me anyway.
Frequently used comparitors are football pitches and London double decker buses, which are indeed used so frequently that I feel they ought to become a standard measure in the imperial system. The Petronas Towers in KL may be referred to as a 250 bus building and the like. Like practically every woman and gay man, I have never had a clue about football. Informing me that the Queen Mary 2 is about the length of three football pitches is considerably less helpful than just telling me how many metres long it is. In the absence of a figure in metres, I make a guess of how big a football pitch is (which is likely to be wildly wrong) and multiply my error by three. The Queen Mary 2 is 350 metres long, which I know to be exactly 7 times the length of an Olympic pool or 7.01 times the length of the pool in Wigan that was built to slightly the wrong spec because somebody bought cheap tiles.
I feel that experiences are easier to compare. If I were to describe the experience of watching a truly dull theatre production as being at least twice as long and tedious as hymn practice at school, I expect you’d know what I mean.
3 comments:
The imperial unit of land lost to anything in a year (logging, golf courses etc) is the "Wales" ("an area three times the size of Wales was lost at the weekend - have you seen it?").
How could I have not mentioned that one? Indeed, a Wales is a meta-imperial measure; particularly frequently used to describe rates of deforestation, as you say. Thanks for reminding me.
It's one of those claims that the actual amount of ground in Wales is bigger than England, given how England is flat and Wales is mountainous. Perhaps we could have an English Wales (flat) and an American Wales (mountainous) to add further confusion, as exists with gallons, etc.
A football pitch is roughly three times the distance you can travel in Sainsbury’s with one firm push on the trolley before lifting your feet and coasting to a stop whilst hanging over the handle – assuming no one gets in the way, you don’t hit one of the shelves and you aren’t told off for messing around by wife, employees, other parents and the more mature of one’s own off-spring.
International pitches require a full weeks shopping load and a 4 step run up.
Post a Comment