O.T. : What Have We Done ... ?

[Doctor Drivel]

Maxie, how is the gutter today? I hope you pull yourself out soon. My God!! And Maxie is in a Paddy band too.

[Dave Liquorice]

The "Gimli Glider".

[Dave Liquorice]

1 Imperial Gallon = 4.54609 litres 1 US Gallon = 3.78 litres

If they had used either gallons instead of litres they'd still have filled the thing.

[Big Les Wade]

John Rumm posted

Why do they write "2 off" in an estimate when they mean two of something?

[mark]

They would put '2 off' because that is correct English. If you had something made that was the only one of it's kind, it would be a 'one-off'.

mark

[Roger]

The message from Big Les Wade contains these words:

Is, or was, standard engineering practice. I was led to believe it was for the avoidance of the doubt that might remain if a number of numerical items were specified without intervening text between the two numbers. Back in the days that handwritten lists were commonplace it was obviously more important but even today a typed item of say 25 2" widgets is open to misinterpretation.

[Frank Erskine]

I understood it to mean, say, 2 items 'from' or 'off' stock to be used for that particular project, and the expression stuck even when talking of non-stock items.

It's better than the Chinese expression like '2 pieces of batteries'. :-)

[Bob Mannix]

[Big Les Wade]

mark posted

I doubt it. I've never seen it used except by builders and their ilk.

I doubt if that has anything to do with it.

[Bob Mannix]

I agree, IMHO I believe the other bloke got it right - it was developed as an unambiguous separator between quantity and description, as in

1 3/4" Whitworth nut

which could be one 3/4" or a 1.75" nut. Better put

1 off 3/4" Whitworth nut

Why the word off was used, I don't know.

[Arfa Daily]

I would have said that it was most likely a case of radio-speak - possibly imported to common useage from the military - where intelligibility requirements often result in 'odd' pronunciations or bastardisation of words such as pronouncing "five" as either "fife" or "fiver".

Arfa

[geoff]

In message , Bob Mannix writes

marking 1 off the stock quantity ?

i.e. was 40 in stock, 1 off leaves 39

[Owain]

Five is fife. Nine is niner.

Owain

[S Viemeister]

Five is sometimes fye-uv.

[Owain]

Not if you want to pass a CAA Flight Radiotelephone Operator's exam it isn't.

Owain

[S Viemeister]

It was, when i learned to be a PBX operator, many years ago.

[Andy Champ]

It wasn't when I was taught army-style voice procedure more years ago than I want to admit.

Andy

[Owain]

PMBX?

Owain

[S Viemeister]

Private Branch Exchange

[John Weston]

Yes but there are two types, a PMBX or a PABX. Different skills :-) (Showing age...)