KM vs Miles

[Dogtrousers]

A "country mile" is just an expression of speech. It has no actual length or definition. It just means "like a mile, but a bit longer".

 

[Alex321]

A "country mile" is just an expression of speech. It has no actual length or definition. It just means "like a mile, but a bit longer".

Except that it is usually (as in this case) referring to something much shorter than an actual mile, or something which can't actually be expressed as a distance at all

 

[Punkawallah]

A "country mile" is just an expression of speech. It has no actual length or definition. It just means "like a mile, but a bit longer".

I beg to differ. While it might be used as a figure of speech, that does not mean it is fictional - just like saying someone ‘missed by miles’ does not make a mile fictional.
Country Miles varied from region to region, but the distance of 2200 yards (10 furlongs) is considered the Old English Mile. The American Kentucky Derby is run over this distance. Elizabeth I standardised the ‘City Mile’ at 1760 yards (8 furlongs).

 

[Milzy]

We are in Miles. Cycling folk in the uk who set their head units to KM think they’re riding in the Tour de France. Deluding themselves that 20kph is 20mph. They probably put filters on their photographs and wear rose tinted spectacles.
They need to come back to reality or move to the KM euro countries.
Good day!

 

[Dorset Boy]

We are in Miles. Cycling folk in the uk who set their head units to KM think they’re riding in the Tour de France. Deluding themselves that 20kph is 20mph. They probably put filters on their photographs and wear rose tinted spectacles.
They need to come back to reality or move to the KM euro countries.
Good day!

What utter twaddle.
but it got the reaction you hoped for....

 

[pippy]

There is a small hamlet in the Pentland hills to the south of Edinburgh named Nine Mile Burn. According to the locals - one of whom being a very close friend of mine - the name simply describes the distance between that place and the aforementioned city. The strange thing is that it is actually 13 miles away.
When I asked my friend about this discrepancy the answer was that in the days before the Penny Black (etc.) existed the delivery of postal mail was charged according to distance covered. Mail from a village nine miles away would cost less than were the village thirteen miles away...

Philip.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I beg to differ. While it might be used as a figure of speech, that does not mean it is fictional - just like saying someone ‘missed by miles’ does not make a mile fictional.
Country Miles varied from region to region, but the distance of 2200 yards (10 furlongs) is considered the Old English Mile. The American Kentucky Derby is run over this distance. Elizabeth I standardised the ‘City Mile’ at 1760 yards (8 furlongs).

Irs not fictional. It's a real figure of speech. But like many idioms there's no known origin or specific meaning.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Cycling folk in the uk who set their head units to KM think they’re riding in the Tour de France

Utter tosh. That is what you think, not those riders.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Irs not fictional. It's a real figure of speech. But like many idioms there's no known origin or specific meaning.

The origins of a country mile are muddied. However, the term is likely derived when the English Statute Mile was established in 1593. Before this time, there was no consistent measurement of a mile. And it probably took rural inhabitants longer to adjust to the accepted length than urban dwellers: hence a country mile versus an urban one.

 

[Dogtrousers]

The origins of a country mile are muddied. However, the term is likely derived when the English Statute Mile was established in 1593. Before this time, there was no consistent measurement of a mile. And it probably took rural inhabitants longer to adjust to the accepted length than urban dwellers: hence a country mile versus an urban one.

Possibly, yes. But the term "country mile" wasn't recorded until the 19th century so it could have been coined at any time between those dates and could have had all kinds of meanings.

It's not like - say - the Swedish Military Mile that has a definite meaning.

By the way there's a good video here about why the mile changed from 5,000 to 5,280 feet (plus other interesting stuff)

View: https://youtu.be/PWbfVcDcfFw?is=LTbegRWa9cHhbzfc

 

[mjr]

Most market stalls sell fruit & veg by the pound still IME.

Many market stalls will still take orders in pounds as well as kg but now actually sell you multiples of 500g not 454. I wouldn't like to guess what the scales are set for if prices are displayed only in lb and it's not like many markets have regular weights and measures checks any more, unless there are complaints! If anything, more and more market produce is sold in displays of preweighed punnets, bowls or bags and the whole units debate sidestepped, although it makes it more difficult to compare sellers.

 

[mjr]

Being a Yank, I did not know that road signs in the UK were not metric.

Some are. Since the Cameron government changed the rules in 2016, some have to be metric, some aren't allowed to be, some must at both, and it's all rather a nonsensical mess.

And those rules also forced rounding off, so some traditional oddities like Norfolk's bizarre "142 yds" junction advance warning signs are now banned, which seemed a really petty move by that government led by Eton todd, but rather than stamping out variation, it's leading to a strange mix of 142 signs slowly being replaced by 140 or 150 depending on how accurate the 142 was in the first place.

 

[mjr]

Because the wanted to keep the traditional shape.

And cutting a square in half doesn't result in two pieces of the same shape, while cutting any Ax size in half across the longtitudinal axis results in two pieces which are the same shape as the original, but half the size,.

Wasn't it so that all sizes (A, B, & C) have sides in the Lichtenberg ratio?

Was it that traditional before 1789?

 

[Dogtrousers]

Wasn't it so that all sizes (A, B, & C) have sides in the Lichtenberg ratio?

It it is indeed. Although I'd never heard of Lichtenberg before.

Interesting.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_standard_paper_sizes

 

[Sharky]

Waitrose are selling milk to customers by the pint, but charging by the litre.