1 fortnight = 14 days
I was making a phone call to someone in London and she kept telling me that I had to wait a fortnight to receive something I’d ordered a month ago. I never had any reason to use the word fortnight, but I think I’ll start using it, just because.
And whilst you’re at it, weigh yourself in stone. One stone = 14 lbs. I am a heavy bugger at 17 stone!
Well, then. I’m confused. What is a ’score’ then? How much is a score of fortnights or a fortnight score? ::::sigh::::
Funny, when I read this I immediately thought about a Score, as in “four score and seven years ago”, from I believe the gettysburg address. Its sad, but I know the answer. A score is 20 years, so if you do the math 4 score and 7 years is 87 years. I like Abe’s version better, it just sounds better than 87 years ago.
woody, i thought the same thing when i read that. honest abe was cool, instead of starting a speech with your run of the mill, “87 years ago, in 1776…” which to me sounds and awful lot like “and one time, in band camp…”
and jozjozjoz, check out this site: http://www.berlandtools.com/specials/why_fortnight.html
it’s about tools but also kind of endearing.
for the record, i weigh 12.5 stone.
Clearly, you didn’t watch Danger Mouse as a kid
Danger Mouse?
Way back in the pre-internet days, there was a “Lunar Lander” graphic game (complete with light pen!!) that ran on the PDP-8 microcomputer. When I first got a look at the source code, I was laughing my ass off. Because it had no floating point unit, all the math was done in integers, and the program used some of the strangest units of measurement I’ve ever seen. The best?
“furlongs per fortnight”
(see, it *was* relevant!)
OMG Danger mouse was my hero :p
you never used fortnight? Wow, I didn’t realise that was a brit/aussie word!