On Sunday 05 April 2009 05:54:11 Han Maenen wrote:
> I agree with Bll Potts. Leave expressions like 'inch by inch' or 'not an
> inch' alone. Those opposed to metric would love it if we wanted to change
> such things. In the Netherlands a folding measuring stick is called a
> 'duimstok', which is 'inch stick' in English. I have a wooden duimstok or
> inch stick with centimetres only on it. I just avoid measuring instruments
> with dual units like the plague.
Or inchworm (I saw the first one yesterday, much less than an inch; the
inchworms here are also called cankerworms).
> Just west of of Dublin is the suburb Inchicore, how lunatic it would be to
> change that to 2.54cmcore, or Sixmilebridge near Limerick to '9.6
> km-Bridge'. Of course, the distance to Sixmilebridge is always given in km
> on road signs: 'Sixmilebridge 10 km'. There is a small place in Ireland
> called Inch.
"Inch" in Ireland is from a Gaelic word "inis" ("innis" in Scots Gaelic)
for "island".
Pierre
