Quote:
Originally Posted by Renato1
I was quite surprised that some of my astro-buddies in Italy referred to their telescopes as being 8 or 10 "pollici" (one pollice= one inch).
Cheers,
Renato
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"Pollice" is Italian for thumb, also about an inch wide and somewhere back in time the reasoning for its adoption to its use in measurement. Just like the foot - "piede".
At a pinch, when your are out shopping and caught without a tape measure who has used their feet (circa 300mm) to measure the length of a couch, piece of timber, distance etc... ?
Best
JA
PS: dont forget lowly A4 paper ruler EVERYWHERE- it's your circa 300 (297)mm x 210mm reference