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xkcd #3138: Dimensional Lumber Tape Measure (imgs.xkcd.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [B] to c/xkcd@lemmy.world
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xkcd #3138: Dimensional Lumber Tape Measure

Title text:

A person with two watches is never sure what time it is, especially if I got them one of the watches.

Transcript:

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3138/

explainxkcd for #3138

A person with two watches is never sure what time it is, especially if I got them one of the watches.
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[–] 16 points 1 year ago (7 children)

That will go nicely with a tape measure that uses the Chinese inch (cùn), which is equal to 1.312 imperial inches

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I had a client who wound up with one of those not realizing what it was, which caused him no end of problems until I ultimately figured it out confiscated it from him. He got a regular US inch one in exchange. I had to look it up at the time, too, because the notion of there being a Chinese knockoff inch that's subtly inaccurate is one of those things that just seems so ridiculous on its face that it simply can't be true, right? Except it totally is.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Except it's not. It's simply a completely different and unrelated unit of measurement, which was dubbed colloquially in the west "Chinese inch". Calling it a "Cinese knockoff inch" is like calling the yard a "US knockoff meter".

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I mean, that's a valid assessment of the yard as well if you're looking at it from a comedy perspective.

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