Apr 6

“The thing you need to know about an oil tanker is that it’s really big. It’s about four soccer fields long”

Why do American writers do this

All this tells me is that oil tankers are really long

I know that oil tankers are long, and I kind of know what one football pitch looks like, but it’s kind of meaningless to say it’s four of them when all I know is “football pitches are long end to end”

Show thread   Apr 6

“They weigh as much as a skyscraper”

HOW MUCH IS THAT!!! HOW MUCH DOES ONE WEIGH???? All that tells me is that an oil tanker is just really heavy, which is something I already know!!!

Show thread   
This happens in British English as well, but it’s either used for sensationalism, like when tabloids say “an iceberg the size of Wales!”, or it is used alongside the actual measurement, like “he can jump over ten metres, that’s like the length of a double-decker bus”
Apr 6 at 9:20pmWeb
Show threadShiraz Turvey 💙 🌲Apr 6

@yassie_j "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space".

Douglas Adams, Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

Show threadStefanApr 7

@yassie_j where did I read/listen about that as well?

But was it really an American thing? I feel like they wouldn't have used a soccer field.

In Germany we use Saarland for size comparisons and I always think that it's one of the smallest states, BUT IT DOESN'T HELP ME!

Show thread   Apr 7
@thehole specifically it was an American person. I have no idea why he used a “soccer field”, that was quite jarring, especially since the difference between an American and association football pitch is only about 10 m lol