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