On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 6:30 AM, Richmond Mathewson <[email protected]> wrote: > And in France a fortnight is a "quinzaine"; I suppose the difference > between 14 and 15 is about the same as La Manche - divides them . . . :)
This talk of fortnights reminds me of my partner explaining to me that in Thailand they have 2 o'clock four times in a day. Whilst we divide the 24 hour day in to 2x12 hours, they divide it into 4x6 hours. My belief is that they do not find everyday life challenging enough, and decided to spice it up with more ambiguity. This also explains their addiction to chilli, so it is obviously a true explanation :-) And it explains why they go in for a language with 40+ characters and 5 tones. Every attempt I make at pronouncing a word in Thai is greeted with furrowed brows or hilarity (and often in that order). Oh yes, they also have a different system of numerals -- and chop and change between 'arabic' numbering and 'thai' numbering when it suits them. I have to confess, on my first trip to Thailand I did find myself incredulous that their calendar year really is 500 or so years ahead of GMT. It's one thing to (nominally) 'know' that other people run two calendars, but it was weird to actually be somewhere and see them using a different calendar on a daily basis. It made me realise that throughout the world those other 'nominal' calendars are probably used as calendars to live by. As if DST didn't cause enough problems in programming. There is so much we take for granted. But I love it when my long-standing views are suddenly revealed to me as being very limited. Bernard _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
