“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”
“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!!!
@yassie_j I’m totally with you. Specificality and standard units matter.
BUT, in all fairness, I also wouldn’t have any clue what it would mean if this was reported in terms of a standard like tons (or tonnes). By which I mean I’d have no idea — by magnitudes — what that would even approximate.
You could tell me an oil tanker weighs 500 tons and it would sound okay. Or you could tell me it weighs 5000 tons and it wound sound not crazy. 50,000 tons sounds like too much, but I you could pretty easily convince me.
When it gets to huge weights (or distances), I have a hard time wrapping my head around what those numbers mean in terms of more everyday references.
That said, to your point, comparing something to the weight of, say, a building doesn’t help me or anyone else in the least.
Reay