I believe "go the extra mile" is a Biblical admonition, in which case it
should be a Roman mile of about 1475 m, not the English mile of 1609 m, so I
suppose we should leave it as it is.
> -----Original Message-----
> Quotations
>
> A pound of flesh ... (Shakespeare)
> There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile ... (Nursery Rhyme)
> The lessons of Three Mile Island ... (Newspaper)
> A bushel and a peck ... (Song)
> It would be an extremely brave (or very foolish) person who would
> Bowdlerise
> Shakespeare to read �A kilogram of flesh� or to rewrite the
> popular song as
> �I love you a millilitre and a cubic metre�.
>
> Sayings and proverbs
>
> Give them an inch and they�ll take an ell (yard, mile, etc.).
> Give them a gram and they�ll take a tonne.
> I wouldn�t touch it with a ten foot pole.
> I wouldn�t touch it with a five metre pole. (Coincidentally five metres is
> very close to the length of the old English measuring pole.)
> Alice felt ten feet tall.
> Alice felt three metres tall.
> Six foot under.
> Two metres down.
> Within an inch (or two) of death (the finish, the goal etc.).
> Missed death by millimetres. The knife wound in her chest went
> close to her
> heart, but missed by millimetres. The return to the bowler�s end missed by
> millimetres.
> Paint an inch thick.
> The paint looked as though it was put on ten (or 50, or 167) millimetres
> thick.
> A miss is as good as a mile.
> A millimetre miss is a kilometre miss.
> An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
> A gram of prevention is worth a tonne of cure.
>
> Clich�s
>
> He won�t budge an inch.
> He won�t move a millimetre.
> Go the extra mile.
> Go the extra metre or Go the extra kilometre.
> Missed by miles.
> Missed by metres.
> Yardstick.
> A measure, a metre stick, or a metre measure.
> To reach a milestone.
> To reach a target. To reach a goal.
> Milestones no longer physically exist as they have been replaced by
> kilometre markers. In some country areas these have become known as �klick
> sticks�.
> Do the hard yards.
> Do the sweeter metre.
>
> In practical terms you can, as an editor, copy the practice of many film
> producers who don�t use any cars in their films at all � unless the car�s
> name is �Genevieve�, or it has machine guns behind its headlights. However
> avoiding any reference to measurement at all is clearly a copout.
>
> Alternatively editors can help protect their speakers and writers from
> looking foolishly old-fashioned by being aware of the correct use of SI
> units*. It�s very hard to believe that someone is modern and forward
> thinking in (say) economics, when their measurement mindset is so
> clearly in
> the fifties, and they are still �missing by miles�.
>
> * See AGPS Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers, 1994,
> 5th Edition
> pp. 200-207
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pat Naughtin CAMS
> Geelong, Australia
>
> PS The reference is to an Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS)
> Style manual that is widely used in Australia.
>
> PPS The return to the 'bowler's end refers to the game of cricket.
>
> > There was an interesting article in a magazine called "World Highways"
> > which is always 100% metric although its published in England. Even
> > articles about US Construction are SI.
> >
> > Headline: "Going the Extra Mile"
> >
> > it was about asphalt plants.
> >
> > Guess some figures of speech will remain with us for awhile yet.
> >
> > Howard Ressel, Metric Manager
> > New York State Department of Transportation, Region 4
> >
> >
>
>
