We all tend to use comparatives to express sizes, lengths, or the heights of things that would otherwise be tricky to estimate.
Tall things tend to be compared to the height of Nelson's Column, long things to Cricket Pitches, and volumes to how many could fit inside Wembley Stadium (above).
Countries sizes are often compared to the number of Wales's that could fit into them.
Room sizes can be compared to the size of a Double Decker Bus, as can Satellites. Front Gardens are often compared to Handkerchiefs. Thickness by Planks or Bricks. Brightness by Buttons. And certain liquid quantities by how many Olympic sized swimming pools they can fill.
Width can be measured in Tennis Courts, obesity by Pigs, attractiveness by Pictures or the rear of Buses, thinness by Rakes, and the lack of hair by Coots.
The British are an inventive lot. More please!
30 comments:
The 'ordinary man' is the man on the Clapham Omnibus.
Nice one, Cro.... I wonder if any other countries have a media that does the same, or similar
France: That Awful Tower for height
Baguettes for long things
Tonneau for volume... or Camembert
Porc is probably still obesity......
Yes, that's an excellent example.
The 'Pork' example is very commonly used these days, and I suspect even more so over the pond.
To the sun and back twice or three times around Earth.
Like we go from litres to kilolitres, so we graduate with water from Olympic sized swimming pools to 'enough water to fill Sydney Harbour twice'.
I presume that each country uses its own landmarks as comparatives. Sydney Harbour wouldn't work in Morocco.
The length of my little finger, or the size of a thumbnail.
Interesting that inch,cubit, hand and foot ( literally for those) are based on the human body
A Thumbnail sketch is certainly very well used.
And I believe a Metre is the length of a Roman Soldier's marching pace.
My Nan used to say a small child was 'no taller than two penneth of ha'pennies'.
Blimey; not heard that one before. Knee high to a Gnat's whisker, was one I've often heard.
Measuring scruffiness. More or less scruffy than PM Johnson. Not many in the first category.
Knee-high to a grasshopper.
And to my grandparents, to go the long way round or to take a long time about something was to go "all the way round the Wrekin" - but that must be a rather local usage.
LOoks like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards.
Whose she, the cats mother ?
Charlies dead { when your petticoat was showing
You're a daft 'apeth.
Too big for your boots.I
remember when we went on school trips to France we used to say ' Vouz avez un visage comme le derriere de l'autobus " , God knows why ..... I guess it
was us being silly school kids !!! XXXX
happy as a lark and fit as a flea spring to mind.
Cro, "Sydney Harbour wouldn't work in Morocco."..... no, they haven't the water!!
That's mine and Lord Dennings.
Poor old Boris, born with an uncontrollable mop on his head. At least you could pick him out in a crowd.
Unique to Shropshire?
Girls no longer wear petticoats (I think), so Charlie is now in retirement. What a shame.
I wonder why folk thought of Fleas as 'fit'?
"What you haven't got in your head you have to have in your legs", as my mother used to say. Not that that has anything to do with measurements. Or maybe it does.
Unfortunately, she was/is right. Which is why I am as fit as one of Weaver's fleas.
Happy as a lark,
U
I think VW's Lark ascending is still No 1 in the UK's classic popularity charts. Happy Indeed.
Tighter than a duck's bum, and she's got a face like the north end of a camel going south!
I won't even mention my old friend Jock's Aussie expression "As dry as a Nun's n*sty".
"A face only a mother could love." was one of my Dad's sayings, or, for a full-chested lady in a low cut top - "Her dumplings are boiling over." I still use them today. xx
Long legs? That's one hell of a pace...in either meaning!
The French equivalent says 'There are a lot of people on the balcony'.... it doesn't sound quite right in English.
Well, as they lived in Staffordshire it was indeed a really long way round.
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