Why are humans obsessed with measuring things?

[Oeditpus Rex]

We're never just "Is it hot where you live?" It's always "How hot is it where you live," and in our human minds we know the questioner wants the answer expressed as a number, a measurement of the hotness. "Damned hot, shit hot, fuckin' hot, muhfuggin' hot" just won't do.

I think perhaps the oddest example of this (to me) is how baseball announcers can't just say someone hit a home run or threw a fast ball anymore. They have to tell us how far or how fast, as in "He hit it 421 feet into the upper deck" or "Cruz strikes out on a 95 mph fast ball," as if a homer is worth more runs the farther it goes or a pitch counts for two strikes if it's a real heater.

:shrug:

[Mutley]

1. You mean, like, it's 85.1° inside my apartment right now?

:D





I'm Soooo glad I bought a fan yesterday.

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. Yeah

Like that.

:eyes:

[Mutley]

6. You're right. I'm obsessed.

It's also 94.6° Outside, which is a cool down from 98.2° earlier today.


:eyes:

[IsIt1984Yet]

2. If you have Showtime, there's a great "Penn and Teller Bullshit!" on

statistics I think you'd enjoy.

http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/prevepisodes.do?episodeid=s4/numbers

[Dangerously Amused]

3. I don't know, but I'll tell you what;

THIS post makes 4704 total DU posts for me!


:woohoo:



How many posts you got, huh?

[Oeditpus Rex]

5. This one makes 13,715

I'm 156th on the All-Time DU Posting List.

I average 86.27 WPP (words per post).

My IOG (incidence of grammar) is 98.4.

My PF (posting frequency) is 17.9 PPD (posts per day).



Anything else y'wanna know? :shrug:

[IsIt1984Yet]

7. What's your average word length?

Or, is that too personal?

[Oeditpus Rex]

9. AWL is 7.29

That's thread-adjusted.

[Deja Q]

17. And I thought it was only 5.12...

Oh well. Either way, I beat outpace that average by some length! :rofl:

[Dangerously Amused]

8. Yeah. What the hell is "incidence of grammar"?

[Oeditpus Rex]

10. Percentage of posts (PP)

in which my grammar is beyond reproach — or, expressed in statistician's lingo, "Above the Webster Line."

[Dangerously Amused]

18. Pardon me,

but shouldn't the sentence in your post above begin with an article such as "the"?

In addition, isn't the "dash" located therein supposed to be essentially two hyphens, thusly: "--"?


How's that ol' grammar statistic now?


Heh.

[Oeditpus Rex]

20. As an old newspaper man

I generally eschew definite articles in headlines as they take valuable space and do not contribute to understanding of the story.

And the em dash I employed is the proper punctuation. Using two hyphens as you suggest is acceptable, but archaic in the age of computers. It was in common use during the Typewriter Era, as typewriters did not feature keys for the em dash or en dash.

[Dangerously Amused]

21. Well then,

is it proper to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as "and"?



Do you hate me yet?




:evilgrin:

[Oeditpus Rex]

22. Some English majors think so

But* conventional wisdom is getting away from that outdated idea.




And**, yes — very much so.




*Ha ha.

**Ibid.

[Mutley]

23. This English major doesn't think so.

Many junior and high school teachers will tell kids not to start sentences with articles because they'll end up starting Every sentence with an article.

I went to the store. And I picked out some soda. And I also picked out some ice cream. And the line was really long. And finally I got to the register. But I didn't have enough money...

But* it's not an iron-clad rule or anything.




*Haha!

[Oeditpus Rex]

24. If someone did it like that, in sequence

they should be strung up in the town square and buggered at high noon. x(

[Mutley]

28. The younger writers will do that sometimes.

Have you ever noticed a lot of them talk like that, too? It's like they don't want to give you a chance to stop paying attention.

[Oeditpus Rex]

29. You mean when they're all like 'Yeah'...

And then they're all like "She goes, 'Duh!'" And then they're all like "Seriously!" And then they're all like "I know!" And then I'm all like "Huh?"

[Mutley]

30. Then I'm all like "Whoa"

And you're all like "Yeah!" And then they're all like "Dude!"


:D

[RagingInMiami]

26. The first thing I learned in J-School

Was to throw everything out that our English teachers had taught us.

And that meant we could start sentences with "And" and "But". And we could also use sentence fragments if we could get away with it. Something I am very fond of doing.

But don't get me wrong. You might not even notice I'm doing it.

[Dangerously Amused]

31. Doing... what? :D

Oh, but you are smoooth!


:7

[Oeditpus Rex]

34. I've been saying for 25 years

I learned nothing about writing from an English teacher. I learned to write in J-school.

[RagingInMiami]

35. Because if we didn't learn how to write in J-School

We would still believe that beginning a sentence with "Because" is bad grammar.

[RagingInMiami]

36. For real?

How can I check my stats?

[Deja Q]

11. Too easy...

:rofl:

[Oeditpus Rex]

15. Yup

:toast:

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

12. It's hotter than hell, goddamn it!

[txwhitedove]

13. I think sports announcers are paid by the word cause they're

colorful common-taters.

[Crabby Appleton]

14. only

37.4% of humans are obsesed with measuring things, 48.7% will settle for a rough estimate, and the remaing 13.9% don't really care either way.

[xchrom]

16. i only like to measure one thing.

and i don't need rulers or anything ...

[rug]

19. It shouldn't have taken 140 words to say this.

[Jamastiene]

25. Hot is measured in degrees and they do clock pitches.

You make a good point. I've never understood why men measure things in the locker room, ya know... Like it means nothing. Bigger better faster more isn't always the best quality. I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week.

Hey, Oeditpus, I know you don't need to worry in a locker room, but then again, the others are just jealous, so don't let 'em get to ya. Trust me, from experience, I know you beat them any day of the week. :loveya:

[Floogeldy]

27. That is a very good question, Oeditpus.

However, I am quite sure that MY DICK IS BIGGER THAN YOURS!

:smoke:

[Oeditpus Rex]

37. If that's important to you

congratulations, or something.

[ScreamingMeemie]

32. Because it's my job!

:hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

33. According to my studies, only 82.7% of humanity is obsessed

with measuring things.

Please try to be more acccurate, thank you.

[reyd reid reed]

38. For what it's worth...

The writers that cover the Rockies and the Sky Sox aren't supposed to use distances any more. E-mail about this very thing last week.

Maybe things are changing.