"Mixing up measuring scales is certainly not confined to hardware items," points out Kevin Harris, of Beecroft (Column 8, Saturday). "Real estate advertisements are full of it. Room measurements are invariably given as a mixture of metric and imperial units: e.g. '3 metres by 3.5 metres with soaring 12-foot ceilings', while houses with a 20-square-metre balcony are commonly known to stand on half-acre blocks." In Column 8's experience, the best examples of this are to be found in American science magazines. Some years ago, Scientific American described a lunar crater as being x kilometres wide, and y feet deep.
"I spotted a wonderful 'mental visual' in Yahoo news on Friday," reports Trish Wiltshire, of Worrigee. "'Rugby game transcended into an ugly brawl.' Isn't that just what the fans appreciate?"
"When I first submitted an item to Column 8 (which was actually published in the mid '70s) there were no C8PhDs," laments the venerable Allan Gibson, of Cherrybrook (Column 8, for much of last week). "I'm hanging out for the Letters co-editors to institute an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in recognition of my contributions." We can only applaud your dedication, Allan, and we wish you luck, but the Letters page is what's known in show business as "a hard room".
Speaking of our learned doctoral fellows, Richard Murnane C8PhD, of Hornsby, following up on our recent talk of Arnott's "Contents: Around 14", writes "It irks me that Lindt is selling their chocolates in bags of eleven (or '5.5 servings', as they say on the packet). Would it really have killed them to throw in one more, so the contents could be equitably shared among 2, 3, 4, 6, or 12 people? And since when do two pieces of chocolate constitute a 'serving' anyway?"
"Coles home delivery vans servicing Clovelly have on their sides the advice 'Excludes Hamilton Island'," reports Graham Russell, of thereabouts. "Why do we need to know this, when Hamilton Island is about 2000 kilometres away? I wonder if they home deliver to Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands."
Which reminds Column 8 of a sign on the side of a vehicle parked outside a restaurant in Pyrmont last week, which read "Excellence in meat and meal solutions". This on the side of a butcher's delivery van.
Twitter: @Column8SMH
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