h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please tell me which moment I will be paying: (see wikispitaedia).

. Medieval definition, 1/40th of an hour (1.5 seconds)
or
. Hebrew calendar, 5/114 of a second
or
. 3 seconds (SI unit)


Rod

Good point. I want the answer to this, too.

‘A moment of your time’ doesn’t adhere to any mathematical rules, or any particular number system, ancient or modern. If I understand correctly, ‘moment’ according to the dictionary means a short period of time. However, in my experience it usually means a much longer period. How many times have you been accosted in the street by someone wearing a tabard and asked for ‘a moment of your time’, and felt a sense of dread, knowing full well if you comply you will have lost an hour of your life and committed yourself to a monthly subscription to save a donkey somewhere. Likewise when someone says ‘I will do that in a moment’, you can go about your daily life, cook the dinner, take the kids on holiday for a fortnight, safe in the knowledge that the moment is still ongoing. Someone should tell those Dictionary people. I am sure if you sign up for Serenity, you could tell them you will pay in a moment.

Yay, frannie. Good point.

I've just been going on about the ridiculousness of timekeeping over in Peer Review: A84012040

When I was a teenager, my piano teacher, who was my greatest mentor, was a stickler for precision in all things. She was a really kind lady, but she was born in the 19th Century (which may have been the 16th, see my essay on Jesus' underwear over in PR). Anyway, she'd check out what I thought words meant. She was a Swede who grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh before the Wright Brothers flew an airplane, and I was a Scots-Irish kid from the South whose grandfather had the first radio in Lost Creek, Tennessee. Anyway.

Miss Lindquist asked me, 'What does the word 'directly' mean?'

I replied, 'Oh, sometime in the indeterminate future, as in 'we'll get there d'reckly'. Sort of like 'manana'.'

I was surprised when she told me the word had another meaning. Then, of course, we went on to figure out how to play a Schumann composition in a way that could be interpreted as, say, 'andächtig'.

Oh, and she made me use a metronome. Talk about the relativity of moments...

Where's my post to frannie @ 3 gone? Muster got busy.


Anyway, please send one, in AuroMetalSaurus and I will pay momentarily.