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

A man ordered a length of rope by telephone from his nearest hardware shop. But when he went to collect the rope, he found that the assistant had miswritten the order by interchanging feet and inches, As a result of this, the rope was only 30 percent of the length that the man wanted. So, what length did he want and what length did he get?

Asked for 9 foot 2 inches
Got 2 foot 9 inches

And there I was, trying to work out how to make one twelfth turn into one third - but it is impossible thought I! There are 12 inches in a foot so if you write down inches instead of feet you'll never got 30 percent...

*note to self - read the questiona bit more thoroughly*

Well done Whisky.

Actually Greebs the shop assistant would be up in court for not seeing the rope in metric.

Confession time - I'd seen this one before and remembered the answer was 9 feet something - so I only had 12 possibilities to check out

Well I was about to start at 30 and go up in 3 inch increments if I hadn't just been returning from lunch when you posted.

It took me about a minute to work this one out the hard way, but since I only saw the question 38 minutes after Greebo posted it, I was a bit late!

My sister once went to a hardware shop and asked for a piece of wood 243 cm long (she had measured how much she wanted). The shop assistant converted it to inches and found it to be just less than 96 inches, so he gave her an 8 foot length. But when she got home she found the "8 foot length" was only 240 cm which is 7 foot 10. When she complained, she was told "all wood comes in metric sizes now"!

Well done Whisky... a point to you me thinks... ~grin~

Thanks Greebo



...




Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have had eight cups of this morning!


*boings off into the distance*

I read of a couple who wanted a daido (sp?) going round their living room, so the husband measured it in inches. The wife remembered that everything was sold in metric, and remeasured. She then took the measurements down to the shop, where the assistants had no idea how long it shopuld be. The wife the converted the measurements she had from metric to imperial, and purchased the correct length of wood. When she got it home, she looked at the price tag, which read "2 * 12 inch wood - £1.79/metre"