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

I meant the bit of Ireland where they use kilometres, KB!

Oh, they use them all over Ireland. Just not necessarily for road signs.

... or for kilometre-ometers.

We say mile-OM-itter and we are in flux between KIL-o-MEET-er and kil-OM-itter. But our vagaries are shared all over the island, and as far as I know, beyond.

I always used to say klicks for kilometres, but believe that may be "kilometres per hour" nowadays

Nnnnot generally afaik. In NATO use klicks still mean distance - speed is only of interest in aircraft and they use knots (as in sea miles per hour).

Yes, klicks is usually referring to distance when I hear it. Which is usually in films only, now that I think about it.

I've only heard Americans use it, but understood immediately that they meant km.

Klicks is American, but specifically military, because the USofA remains
one of three countries that have not yet converted to metric and only
their armed forces use kilometers because it is necessary for clear com
with other NATO and Alliance forces. It is a mark of being ex-military or
faux military to use Klicks in what passes for polite civilian conversation.

Canada just says K. Whether it's distance or rate of speed. As in it's
forty K home from here or I was doing 100 K and he just blew by me.
This avoids the ongoing battle between kil-OM-itters and KILL-Oh-meters.
And it is an ongoing battle! No matter which you say, someone will correct
you - although this can often now be 'ironic', suggesting that both will be in
use for some time.


~jwf~

my experience of the military (ie. listening to Father and own use and the use of those around me) is that 'klicks' could refer to either distance or distance/hour (or other time unit)

So you could say "X is twenty klicks away" or "he was moving at X klicks when the landrover overturned"

or did we mean "clicks"?

The moral of that is if you ever go to X Klicks, stay still.

That's interesting, folks. My klicks usage comes ultimately from an American in Ethiopia 40 years ago He hadn't ever been military but gave off a slight aura of secret service.
I use the bare 'k' to refer to money, especially in writing, eg "That house cost over $300K or $K300"

what is the whiff of secret service (in my experience it is that of sweaty socks)

at Sho!

What defines it? Giving your name as Bondjames Bond?

Having a miniature camera before they became widely available, being unable to account for up to a year on a CV, always winning at 'Diplomacy', being ale to hit a bullseye when firing over one's shoulder

Forgive me but I need to ventilate .

I have often complained about the misuse of 'quality' as a positive adjective when it is merely a measure of properties that can range from very good to very bad.

And I have also complained that the same thing has happened to 'result'. Results can range from horrific to wondrous but today it seems to have come to mean only 'success'.

And now the word genre is being misunderstood. It too is now being used in a too specific and limited way that strangely includes many, but vaguely similar, genres. Originally (and therefore properly) it means:

>>
Cultural Dictionary
genre [( zhahn -ruh)]
The kind or type of a work of art, from the French, meaning “kind” or “genus.” Literary genres include the novel and the sonnet. Musical genres include the concerto and the symphony. Film genres include Westerns and horror movies.
<<

But now it being used as an inclusive term for all Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Supernatural and Horror content in a wide range of media; films, video games, books, comics and graphic novels. While all these may have similar 'qualities' and often share the same fan base, each is really a genre unto itself, a kind or type, booth of content and medium.

That said, perhaps a generic term really is required to group all these into a semi-defined category. But I resist the use of genre to include such widely divergent 'genres' as Star Trek, Harry Potter, Halo, LOTR, Superman, Futurama, X-Files, Darkman, Shrek, Destiny, World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto.


There, I feel much better now.
I thank you all for your patience.
And I'm 'sorry' for all the inverted commas but we have no access to the use of italics in postings and nobody likes to see full caps, the only other ways to indicate emphasis or special considerations of meaning in text.


~jwf~

Typo! For booth above read 'both'.

And as a PS:
The reason I object to this new narrowed meaning of genre is not just an old farts reaction to the sloppy uneducated thinking of youth but rather a reasoned concern for the dilemma that will result. What word will we substitute for genre when one wants to refer to Comedy, Drama, History, Romance, Documentary, Mystery and other genres.


jwf

~jwf~ you have my sympathy.

But this has been going on a long time. It happened to 'prove' which once meant 'test' but came to mean 'confirm'.

The Latin tag 'exceptio probat regulum' has come to mean 'the/an exception confirms the rule' but that is a bad reading.

Probat does mean 'prove, but it is the same as 'probe'. Things can also be proved wrong.

Catching up on slightly old threads here after a busy weekend...


I wouldn't call a concerto or a symphony a musical genre. They are musical forms. Chamber music, orchestral music, opera ... would be genres in my book.