Fernando wrote:
> Now, I hate when I see something like "2 yards, 2 feet, 5 inches and
> (the stroke of mercy) 1/8" -- It takes me several seconds to figure out
> how tall that person is!
Now that's a tall specimen (2.57 meters)!
> By the way: does "stroke of mercy" make sense in English?
> - fernando
No, I'm not sure of your meaning for that phrase in the context
(though I have some guesses). English (at least in the U.S., I'm not
sure about other locales) does have the phrase "stroke of luck," but
that's the only 'stroke' idiom that comes to mind.
It also occurs to me to mention that being an anglophone is not at
issue here. In the U.K. most units are metric. I think other
commonwealth countries make primary use of the metric system. It is
we in the U.S. who hold onto this 'English' system, which is ironic
when one considers that the early U.S. pioneered using the decimal
system in its monetary system, which I believed inspired the French
after their revolution to make other measurements decimally based.
Jim
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Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
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