Re: British v. American Vocabulary


25 Sep 1995 03:56:16 GMT

In article <librikDF6M9D.GHG@netcom.com>, librik@netcom.com (David Librik) writes:

|> >> 11
|> >> 6.0 x 10 furlongs per fortnight (the speed of light)
|>
|> The reason this joke is funny in the US is that both "furlong" and
|> "fortnight" are weird ancient ways of measuring that nobody uses.

I don't know about the UK, but the joke works well enough
for me here in NZ (New Zealand, that is). The only context
in which I've ever heard the term "furlong" actually used
in seriousness is for measuring horse racing tracks...

|> - David Librik
|> librik@cs.Berkeley.edu

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a |
Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan Inc.|
greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+