Monday, October 24, 2005

With regard to our recent meteorological afflictions...can anyone tell me exactly what a cubit is? First person to do so wins a spot on the deck with the long-eared and perching animals.
Also. Life is good, mostly. Mostly.

3 comments:

Richard said...

A cubit is an ancient measure of length, supposed to be about as long as a forearm, so about 18 inches/42 cm... There's also a long cubit (for people with long arms, I guess) which measured about 22 inches/52 cm. It's from Middle English, though they just nicked it from the Latin cubitum.

Unknown said...

Oh I knew all that, it was just the 18 inches bit I needed to know.
Although um. If we're measuring in terms of forearms, I feel it is quite cruel to use 18 inches as the standard. The...charmingly petite amongst us might be made to feel inferior. I demand the dwarf cubit.

Richard said...

6 inches?