Randomness

[Rich B]

Was that Rich B in the Maestro?

trying to work out the reference, though I was 6 in 1986, had black hair not blonde and my mums Maestro wasnt even built until 1989!

[nuttinnew]

Was that Rich B in the Maestro?

trying to work out the reference, though I was 6 in 1986, had black hair not blonde and my mums Maestro wasnt even built until 1989!

Nothing more than I recalled you said your mum had a Maestro.

Watching that, and with the return of the Capri, makes me wonder if there are sufficient rose-cunted glasses to make a reboot of the baby store shown viable. For more retro goodwill the campaign could be fronted by Samuel L. Jackson; MotherfuCare.

[Rich B]

Was that Rich B in the Maestro?

trying to work out the reference, though I was 6 in 1986, had black hair not blonde and my mums Maestro wasnt even built until 1989!

Nothing more than I recalled you said your mum had a Maestro.

Watching that, and with the return of the Capri, makes me wonder if there are sufficient rose-cunted glasses to make a reboot of the baby store shown viable. For more retro goodwill the campaign could be fronted by Samuel L. Jackson; MotherfuCare.

impressive memory!

[Jobbo]

Maybe not that random because everyone knows the Slow Mo Guys and has heard of cheese rolling by now, surely? But still a good video.

[ZedLeg]

IMG_1129.jpeg (110.69 KiB) Viewed 1166 times

[Swervin_Mervin]

[mik]

Not perfect, but not a million miles off either (for me at least - YEMV)

[DeskJockey]

Interesting. As an aside my feet are a foot long (each).

That does ask some questions around whose feet were used to decide on the measure, as mine are a fair bit larger than average.

[Rich B]

Not perfect, but not a million miles off either (for me at least - YEMV)

the hand ones (top row are miles out - 23, 17, 12) but the finger ones are pretty good.

[Jobbo]

My grandfather taught me the finger ones when I was a child. I always wondered how much older I'd be before my thumb was an inch wide (which is what he used rather than 2 cm thick). Of course, this sort of estimation is what gave rise to the phrase 'rule of thumb'.

[Mito Man]

Weirdly I remember being taught this in school and it was also examined in terms of "Approximately how long is this line -------------------"

Still yet to use that life skill

[dinny_g]

Of course, this sort of estimation is what gave rise to the phrase 'rule of thumb'.

No it wasn’t - you could beat your wife with a stick no wider than your thumb

[DeskJockey]

Top row 24.5/19/12
Bottom row 6/2.5/1.5

[DeskJockey]

Not that I'm bored or nuffink, but with fingers stretched the first measurement gains a centimetre, the second two.

[mik]

I'm afraid @DeskJockey that you (and Denis Cyplenkov) have to apply the rule of finger.

[DeskJockey]

[Beany]

Of course, this sort of estimation is what gave rise to the phrase 'rule of thumb'.

No it wasn’t - you could beat your wife with a stick no wider than your thumb

And that, in and of itself, wasn't true. It's called 'folk etymology', AKA people making shit up because it sounds good.

A modern folk etymology holds that the phrase is derived from the maximum width of a stick allowed for wife-beating under English common law, but no such law ever existed. This belief may have originated in a rumored statement by 18th-century judge Sir Francis Buller that a man may beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb. The rumor produced numerous jokes and satirical cartoons at Buller's expense, but there is no record that he made such a statement.

English jurist Sir William Blackstone wrote in his Commentaries on the Laws of England of an "old law" that once allowed "moderate" beatings by husbands, but he did not mention thumbs or any specific implements. Wife-beating has been officially outlawed for centuries in England (and the rest of the United Kingdom) and the United States, but continued in practice; several 19th-century American court rulings referred to an "ancient doctrine" that the judges believed had allowed husbands to physically punish their wives using implements no thicker than their thumbs.

The phrase rule of thumb first became associated with domestic abuse in the 1970s, after which the spurious legal definition was cited as factual in a number of law journals, and the United States Commission on Civil Rights published a report on domestic abuse titled "Under the Rule of Thumb" in 1982. Some efforts were made to discourage the phrase, which was seen as taboo owing to this false origin. During the 1990s, several authors correctly identified the spurious etymology; however, the connection to domestic violence was cited in some legal sources even into the early 2000s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb

[dinny_g]

AKA people making shit up because it sounds good.

To be fair, doesn’t this apply to all idioms??

[nuttinnew]

[Swervin_Mervin]

Not perfect, but not a million miles off either (for me at least - YEMV)

Generally always worked for me. My Dad taught me most of those. The one I use most often for measuring ad hoc is the 20cm/8" one, although I just splay my hand, rather than fold over my three middle fingers. Quite often, if I don't actually need to know what the measurement actually is, I'll use thumbs, fingers, hand widths etc to mark things out.