Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: > Well I agree to that, but allow me to note that it's only one post > away you mentioned "0" as a memorable number.
I might have been unclear - it's not so much that it's memorable, but it has a different gut reaction. "Below zero" in my gut is akin to saying "it's off the scale"; it implies a big extreme in subjective perception rather than a specific physical quantity. If you say "it's below zero" on the Celsius scale, it's literally freezing cold, but it's not an uncommon or exceptional thing. It's below zero through almost the entire winter (and half the spring and fall, at least up here). But, if you say the same thing with the Fahrenheit scale, that is actually fairly special, even in winter - below zero Fahrenheit is pretty cold.
