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I've just had to go through my entire WIP rationalising the measurements I've written, having finally decided on using Imperial. Such phrases as 'the water rose to within centimetres of their feet' were far too clunky - 'inches' felt better. So then metres had to become yards, a six metre-tall tree became, after frantic workings-out, twenty feet, and so on.
I suppose you youngsters who went through school in metric will laugh, or do we all face the same dilemma?
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So Lizy, what you do is this: 'the water rose to within a smidgen of their feet'; 'the tree was tall, damn tall';.
at the end of all that, you can choose to publish in 176 X 250 mm or 6.93 × 9.84 inches.
Don't worry about the thanks - always pleased to help!! )
PET - if I describe a tree as tall, but it then turns out to be two feet too short for its required function, I am still faced with stating that fact somehow.
I do create some weird dilemmas for myself - perhaps that's what keeps my brain functioning like that of a youngster.
;;)
I meant why bother with working out exactly, NOW? Can't you just roughly gauge 20 feet more or less, rather than gong to mathematical lengths?
Liz - 'roughly' doesn't work for me, I would only have to search out the passage later and correct it, so I'd rather get it right now.
For Heaven's sake - am I the only one who does this?
*wonders whether she is OCD or paranoid or both*
'Give him an inch and he'll take a mile' - doesn't translate to metric. We adopt measurements but not the colloquialisms that go with them in other languages.
Wood dimensions are still measured in inches but length in metric - a piece of two-by-four 2 metres long.
'He came within an inch of falling to his death' - would you say 'He came within two centimetres of falling to his death'?
The French measure TV screens and computer monitors in inches - 'pouces'.
Miss Marple wouldn't call her taxi driver Centimetre.
Anyway, post-Brexit, imperial could be back in fashion, and you'll be ahead of your time!
I still have a metric and imperial tape-measure in my handbag, because I'm too tight to replace it, and I still have to take the hems of trousers up in round inches. What can I say - I have imperial legs.
So when writing, I get muddled. My spelling's gone off as well - there are many Spanish words that are similar to English but they rarely use double letters, so now I'm confused about that too. I used to be 100% accurate, always.
Most discombobulating.
as here in New Zealand we are all metric. When I bought the sheets of lining they had been made in Australia so were made imperial so nothing fitted.
WHY DON'T THEY LEAVE THINGS ALONE.
I'm off to spend a penny but cannot even do that these days.
'the water rose to within centimetres of their feet' - 2cm? 171cm? 89822cm?
'a six metre-tall tree' - why six metres? Six metres exactly? Is the reader going to know if 6m if tall for that kind of tree or are you pointing out the fact it's a midget by comparison to it's siblings?
As strange as it sounds, being specific with dimensions leaves too much up to guesswork. I'd prefer to hear about the tree looming over someone or water droplets bouncing from the surface of the sea and wetting their shoes - distances just seems so...practical. I am not a practical man :P
These particular trees have to be a certain length to create a bridge, and the measurement matters.