survey

[Bernard Devlin]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 6:30 AM, Richmond Mathewson
<richmondmathewson at gmail.com> 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