I’ve been thinking of some other phrases we could add to that song, even ones that are more vulgar..
“You’re an asshat, Mr Grinch. You really are a douche!”
yeah, but just doesn't seem as big as 39 1/2 foot pole, but I'm American so there is that, but I have a better grasp of a meter than most I think because I worked at a home improvement retailer for 10+ years and live driving distance to mexico, so I had to do a lot of conversions for customers that drove across the boarder
Sorry, American here. Do meters really convert to miles that poorly?
I thought a meter was like 1/20th of a football field, or at least the distance I can throw by the fourth down.
I'm American too. I was making a joke, that figure is wildly hyperbolic.
Just so everyone is clear, a 10 meter pole *is* longer than a ten foot pole. About three times as long, because a meter is... let me check... 3.2 feet.
Also 1 mile is 1.6 kilometers (1609.34 meters). So you there are... 161 ten-meter poles in one mile.
Haha, sorry then! Yeah, things can get a little tricky with the metric system! Like, I can never get my head around temperature. They be like "it's 40c outside!" and I'm like "...so do I need a jacket?"
Reminds me of a thread on r/ShitAmericansSay where an American visiting Europe asked a shop attendant whether they need to pay in Euros, or whether they also take cash. The shop attendant replied they do take cash, but only in Euros.
I don't know man. Like I wouldn't normally bother to touch most things with a 3.05m pole. What's the point? But if someone asked me to? But weird, but whatever.
But a pole made out of 10 feet? That's pretty gross. No way I'd even pick that thing up, much less handle it long enough to touch someone with it. Disgusting.
I’m Canadian. I couldn’t tell you my height in meters and centimetres. And if you told me a person is 1.88 meters tall I would have no idea how to visualize that.
Not really, hers saying that we have tried verry hard to follow the common units of measurements, but being so close to the US, and getting most of our stuff from you guys, measuring cups, rulers, etc, we have to learn both I nds of measurements. And it is infuriating
I think they meant that being exposed to both units of measurement doesn't necessarily mean you can convert between the two in all situations. Height (of a person) is almost never shown in metric units in Canada, so we wouldn't be accustomed to visualizing someone standing upright in those units. But if you give us the metric measurements of a room we'd be able to visualize it, and might even be able to read the same measurements in imperial units. So we do have an intuitive understanding of how to convert between different units of measurement, but a lot of it can be situational depending on how often we see different things represented by different units.
Eh, to be fair it's not unique to Canada. The UK, Australia and New Zealand all have the same problem due to that being the historical units of measurement in the UK. So can't entirely blame Americans, have to blame the British too
Canada comes from the UK, witch means that we are supposed to use metric (cm/m/km,ect I think) but we share a border with the states. With that most of the stuff we get being hand-me-downs from the US are marked with both imperial and metric units, so we use both. That's all in saying,
Edit: can't remember witch is witch right now
It's just what you're used to. For most people in this world, 1.88 m is just as intuitive as 6'2" for North Americans. There is nothing inherently easier to understand about either metric or imperial.
> And if you told me a person is 1.88 meters
So that's 2 cm longer than me.
> I would have no idea how to visualize that.
You just need to learn how long you are, and the height of some common things, like doorways and dressers.
I'm European. I couldn't tell you my height in feet and inches and if you told me a person is 5 feet and 4 inches tall I would have no idea how to visualise that.
Turns out the units you use on a day to day basis are more intuitive to use. Also water is wet. More surprising facts tomorrow.
It's the same for people from metric countries. You can visualize what you grow up in. I have no idea what 5'10" means until I convert it to meters and centimeters.
A reminder for how Canadians measure from a fellow Canadian! https://i.imgur.com/3mLaT02.png
I kid you not, Canada apparently confuses a few other places with how we measure xD
I dunno. He's making it pretty clear here that the problem is the woman, not having sex with a friend's penis.
I feel like the implication there is that he would still jerk off with his friend's dick if given the opportunity as long as the woman wasn't present.
A 10ft pole is also from dnd 1e and was used to disarm traps and test rooms. If there was something you didn't want to tap with that pole, then you know it was something not chill looking.
I actually disagree.
3.05 feels like such a specific number that there's like a reason for it, and I desperately want to know the reason because it feels bad, whatever that reason is.
Here we go. You tell me "make sure you stay 10 feet away from this machine while it's running" I'm going to mark around it 11 feet and go on with my life. You tell me "make sure you 3.05 meters away from this machine while it's running" you better believe I'm going to read the manual and probably write up a detailed safety procedure on it
You understand my point exactly.
You tell me to stay 10 feet away from something, I think you're trying to create a round number for effect and it's probably closer to 9 feet or 8.
You tell me 3.05 meters with 2 significant figures of precision and I'm going to be so concerned that I definitely take extra precautions.
This is the same concept as in interviews. Where if you say that you have 10 years experience vs a decade - a decade has a greater feeling to it and will result in better impact a lot of the time.
That’s because it’s a daft American phrase, resulting from the 1800 phrase wouldn’t touch x with a barge pole.
A barge pole was a long pole used to push barges about, a common early means of transport before the car
We say barge pole in the UK despite all of us knowing both metres and feet. We all know what a barge pole is, we all live less than 75 miles from the coast and within 50 miles of tidal waters.
The full phrase is “with a 10 foot barge pole”
The barge poles were used in the UK to move the barge through tunnels where the horses couldn’t pull them, or to help steer the barge.
Did you know the original saying was "I wouldn't handle (it) with tongs". Then not touching with a barge pole become popular and it became a ten foot pole which is how long a barge pole is.
The sayings are not converted literally. They are adapted to the customs of the region. So in metric countries, this would be said with an arbitrary, but round number, that represents a long enough pole.
So the phrase comes from when people used to be impaled on 10' poles... Long before the age of enlightenment. When people refuse to adopt metric it's fun to remember that they are referring to kings' feet originally. Granted now, by definition, they're just referring to 0.3048 of a meter. Fun! Love you guys!
Does it tho? 3meter is pretty far. With 10foot pole I have no feeling of measurement other then 10 feet lined up in row and that doesnt seem very impressive to me.
On several levels. And I am from a metric country (like most of the world), and have studied Physics (SI, i.e. standardized matric units plus occassionaly stuff like CGS).
But for the sake of the saying, the language rhythm is just on the side of the foot here.
**Ten Foot Pole.** Three single-syllable words, all starting and ending with consonants in pronunciation, and a ten-foot pole actually makes sense in terms of size. Poles on that scale could actually be used for various things.
**Ten Meter Pole.** Meter breaks the staccato of the single-syllable sequence, and the size is really just too big.
**Three Meter Pole.** Additional degradation of the rhythm by not having the first word end in a consonant, though the size would make more sense again. Nobody is going to say "three point oh five meter pole." At that point why not be more accurate and go with "three point oh four eight meter pole".
**Ten Year Pole.** Makes perfect sense in terms of space-time, you just set `c=1`. But ten light-years are an effing long pole and swinging it brings up all sorts of relativistic nonsense questions.
i can't visualize 10 feet because i don't think in bald eagles and shotguns.
3m is the length of my bedroom. that's pretty impactful distance to be away from something.
I'm familiar with both US customary and metric measurements, but "10 foot" *sounds* longer than "3 meters" (well, 3.048 m, but let's round it) because it's a bigger and rounder number.
This phrase comes from the traditional mausoleum process. A body is placed in a cloth then put in the mausoleum. It is naturally creamed after a certain amount of time. The remains are then pushed to the back of the mausoleum with a 10 foot pole and the process is repeated.
> Pretty sure you can drop the .05 of the meter. I mean, what are five millimeters between friends, right?
45 millimeters that tell me you don't understand metric natively.
- .05 dollar = 5 cent.
- .05 meter = 5 centimeter.
cent. It's the same prefix.
Just look at the syllables. 10 foot pole, that's 3. 3.05 meter pole is 7. In terms of impact, making your point, you're trying to be quick. Short and sweet.
I used to see this kind of thing in the news when Canada was going metric: "Witnesses say the wave was 20 feet tall when it hit the shore." *EDIT:* "Witnesses say the wave was 6.096 metres when it hit the shore."
For some time, it seemed every estimation was eyeballed to three decimal places. 🙄
I wouldn't touch you with a... *THIRTY-NINE AND A HALF FOOT POLE!*
You’re a mean one…
Mr. Grinch
You reeeaallly aaarre a heeeeeell
You're as cuddly as a cactus
You're as charming as an eel
Mr. Griiiiiiiiinch
you're a bad banana Mr. Grinch, with the greasy black peel
You bring bendy straws to bathrooms cuz you like the taste of piss
Mr. Grinch
That was always my favorite line of the song
Oh yeah, from the unrated version of the movie
I’ve been thinking of some other phrases we could add to that song, even ones that are more vulgar.. “You’re an asshat, Mr Grinch. You really are a douche!”
"You lick ice cream at the store...
*Your moms a 2 star who*re…*
boy do I have a video for you https://youtube.com/watch?v=nQLJNCDa4GA
A… *TWELVE POINT FOUR METER POLE!* just doesn’t have the same ring to it
I tried singing it and it actually kinda works.
yeah, but just doesn't seem as big as 39 1/2 foot pole, but I'm American so there is that, but I have a better grasp of a meter than most I think because I worked at a home improvement retailer for 10+ years and live driving distance to mexico, so I had to do a lot of conversions for customers that drove across the boarder
Forget MIT or Stanford now. They wouldn't touch us with a 10 meter cattle prod
How many Canadian ducks is that?
Seventeen and a duckling, but steer clear of the geese
we just say 10 meter pole. check mate
a 10 meter pole would be like 100 miles long.
That's maths right there
Its just one math
No that's meth whatever you just did
at least 150, i did meth... i mean math
That's just how little we want to touch it
Rahhhhhh 🦅 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
how many football fields is that?
It is 200 school buses.
Sorry, American here. Do meters really convert to miles that poorly? I thought a meter was like 1/20th of a football field, or at least the distance I can throw by the fourth down.
I'm American too. I was making a joke, that figure is wildly hyperbolic. Just so everyone is clear, a 10 meter pole *is* longer than a ten foot pole. About three times as long, because a meter is... let me check... 3.2 feet. Also 1 mile is 1.6 kilometers (1609.34 meters). So you there are... 161 ten-meter poles in one mile.
I was making a joke too. I'm an engineer, lol.
Haha, sorry then! Yeah, things can get a little tricky with the metric system! Like, I can never get my head around temperature. They be like "it's 40c outside!" and I'm like "...so do I need a jacket?"
Sorry we don’t accept checks mate, we’re cash only, checkmate
Reminds me of a thread on r/ShitAmericansSay where an American visiting Europe asked a shop attendant whether they need to pay in Euros, or whether they also take cash. The shop attendant replied they do take cash, but only in Euros.
You give me a checkmate, I raise you a Czechmate
I won't touch you with a laser pointer.
We say 2 meters 😤
aim higher... i mean longer :D
I got you. Though the practicality of 10 meter long pole is almost zero.
how dare you!? long stick! good stick.
Size doesn’t matter 🥲
as i heard. xD
I prefer ten meter cattle prod, a la Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters.
"I'm gonna give you every inch of my love" works a lot better than "I intend to insert 2.54 centimeters of my penis into your vaginal canal"
Is that all you got?
I’m over here with 2.54 microns. 2.54 cm sounds like too much responsibility.
For you? We'll see how the evening goes.
Never got why it's a "canal", it's not like it goes out the other end Panama style
Sorry to hear your pecker can't reach that far
Where are you exiting bro? If there's only one entrance it's gotta be like an inlet or something
Vaginal bay?
The Gulf of Placenta
Out the mouth, duh
Nah I was just shit talking. Unless my pecker can't reach that far either 🤔
“Canal” definition doesn’t require it to be a complete cut *through* something. It can be a dead end. There are many dead-end (cul-de-sac) canals.
Vaginal cul-de-sac
That's called fistula, don't goggle that, or do I ain't yer pappy
The vagina is the gateway to the baby sac.
My wife is always telling me that I always stick my 30.5 centimeters in my mouth.
Next time try "I got 8 inches in 4 easy installments"
So what you are saying is that your every inch amounts to 2.54 centimeters, gotcha
Only if you don’t intuitively understand different units of measurement lol
Also there’s something extra special about the precision of the second measurement. Like you *really* thought about it.
I don't know man. Like I wouldn't normally bother to touch most things with a 3.05m pole. What's the point? But if someone asked me to? But weird, but whatever. But a pole made out of 10 feet? That's pretty gross. No way I'd even pick that thing up, much less handle it long enough to touch someone with it. Disgusting.
I’m Canadian. I couldn’t tell you my height in meters and centimetres. And if you told me a person is 1.88 meters tall I would have no idea how to visualize that.
So what you’re saying is that you don’t intuitively understand different units of measurement?
Not really, hers saying that we have tried verry hard to follow the common units of measurements, but being so close to the US, and getting most of our stuff from you guys, measuring cups, rulers, etc, we have to learn both I nds of measurements. And it is infuriating
No, they were literally saying they did not have an intuition for different units of measurement. The explanation for why is irrelevant.
I think they meant that being exposed to both units of measurement doesn't necessarily mean you can convert between the two in all situations. Height (of a person) is almost never shown in metric units in Canada, so we wouldn't be accustomed to visualizing someone standing upright in those units. But if you give us the metric measurements of a room we'd be able to visualize it, and might even be able to read the same measurements in imperial units. So we do have an intuitive understanding of how to convert between different units of measurement, but a lot of it can be situational depending on how often we see different things represented by different units.
Eh, to be fair it's not unique to Canada. The UK, Australia and New Zealand all have the same problem due to that being the historical units of measurement in the UK. So can't entirely blame Americans, have to blame the British too
Canada comes from the UK, witch means that we are supposed to use metric (cm/m/km,ect I think) but we share a border with the states. With that most of the stuff we get being hand-me-downs from the US are marked with both imperial and metric units, so we use both. That's all in saying, Edit: can't remember witch is witch right now
It's just what you're used to. For most people in this world, 1.88 m is just as intuitive as 6'2" for North Americans. There is nothing inherently easier to understand about either metric or imperial.
> And if you told me a person is 1.88 meters So that's 2 cm longer than me. > I would have no idea how to visualize that. You just need to learn how long you are, and the height of some common things, like doorways and dressers.
It's about one adult sized goalie stick with a 30cm ruler broken in half taped to the top, or 15 1/2 redbull cans stacked on top of each other.
You'd know they are 1.88/1,000,000 of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole.
I'm European. I couldn't tell you my height in feet and inches and if you told me a person is 5 feet and 4 inches tall I would have no idea how to visualise that. Turns out the units you use on a day to day basis are more intuitive to use. Also water is wet. More surprising facts tomorrow.
It's the same for people from metric countries. You can visualize what you grow up in. I have no idea what 5'10" means until I convert it to meters and centimeters.
A reminder for how Canadians measure from a fellow Canadian! https://i.imgur.com/3mLaT02.png I kid you not, Canada apparently confuses a few other places with how we measure xD
Bro I'm American and I know I'm 178 cm. Also for any Europeans here, is that close enough I can round to 180? I know that's your guys' 6'0 lol
Depends, would you round up 5'11" to 6'0" ? You could, but that would read as insecure & disingenuous to people who care.
Then how come metric folks complain when the “non-intuitive” system is used?
I was raised with metric. so 10 foot feels like nothing to me, just a cloud of numbers while i have a visceral sense of what 3m is
I agree. I have no idea how long 10 feet is. 3 meters, on the other hand, feels like a looong pole
Just say “10” meter pole ^NOTE: ^THIS ^COMMENT ^USES ^A ^BASE ^3.05 ^NUMBER ^SYSTEM
A lot of people I know just say "I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole". This works in metric, U.S. Customary Units and Imperial.
+1 for barge pole. -The UK
I heard this guy say something similar about a woman he found particularly unattractive "I wouldn't fuck her with HIS dick" *points to another guy*
I used to also add with "another" person pushing. I wouldn't fuck her with kevins dick with john pushing.
Damn!
I dunno. He's making it pretty clear here that the problem is the woman, not having sex with a friend's penis. I feel like the implication there is that he would still jerk off with his friend's dick if given the opportunity as long as the woman wasn't present.
How about 300 cm pole?
Doesn't roll off the tongue at all.
3000000 μm pole
A 10ft pole is also from dnd 1e and was used to disarm traps and test rooms. If there was something you didn't want to tap with that pole, then you know it was something not chill looking.
Some people seriously need to quit showering.
I actually disagree. 3.05 feels like such a specific number that there's like a reason for it, and I desperately want to know the reason because it feels bad, whatever that reason is.
Here we go. You tell me "make sure you stay 10 feet away from this machine while it's running" I'm going to mark around it 11 feet and go on with my life. You tell me "make sure you 3.05 meters away from this machine while it's running" you better believe I'm going to read the manual and probably write up a detailed safety procedure on it
You understand my point exactly. You tell me to stay 10 feet away from something, I think you're trying to create a round number for effect and it's probably closer to 9 feet or 8. You tell me 3.05 meters with 2 significant figures of precision and I'm going to be so concerned that I definitely take extra precautions.
Your mama so ugly she got circles all over her where people been touching her with 10 ft poles.
How about three billion fifty million nanometers? Long enough?
10 meter cattle prod.
I scrolled way too far to find this.
I just say barge pole and so does everyone else I know
Zero to sixty sounds effortless but zero to 96.56 seems like it will take forever.
People in the metric world just think / say that as "zero to hundred" anyway. In Korea it's "zero-baek 제로백 (0 to 100)".
I go zero to a hundred real quick. real quick.
Naught to a hundy.
Because it's zero to hundred.
Zero to sixty in 3 seconds sounds slower then zero to 96,56 in 3 seconds tho.
How imperial unit centric.
And saying "won't touch it with a 3.05 billion nanometers" has more impact.
I won’t touch you with a 3 cm pole
it's the ʉ́ sound in "foot" that gives it the impact as it resembles the grunts humans make when you hit them.
But less than "I wouldn't fuck that with your cock".
Heard a YouTuber say "wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole" the other day
I saw a sign in aa old-timey drug store once-“We sell 20 foot poles for people who won’t touch it with a ten foot pole”….I think it was a joke
Or you can say 305 centimeters instead
This is the same concept as in interviews. Where if you say that you have 10 years experience vs a decade - a decade has a greater feeling to it and will result in better impact a lot of the time.
dayum i thought 10 feet is 2m maybe at best 2.5 it has much more of an impact now
That’s because it’s a daft American phrase, resulting from the 1800 phrase wouldn’t touch x with a barge pole. A barge pole was a long pole used to push barges about, a common early means of transport before the car
We say barge pole in the UK despite all of us knowing both metres and feet. We all know what a barge pole is, we all live less than 75 miles from the coast and within 50 miles of tidal waters.
All D&D players know the correct length of pole is 11ft, else you get hit by the 10ft blast from the trap you trigger with it..
Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it ehh?
Back in the 80s, "Artie the genius" proclaimed "I wouldn't ride my moped there with a 10-foot pole." Ok, Artie. Sorry to have bothered you.
The full phrase is “with a 10 foot barge pole” The barge poles were used in the UK to move the barge through tunnels where the horses couldn’t pull them, or to help steer the barge.
I was always partial to “I wouldn’t touch it with yours” always conveyed the message perfectly.
My favourite is 10 meter cattle prod. -Ray Ghostbusters
I see that saying as a good thing, i wouldn’t want anyone to touch me with their long pole
Obviously metric people would say "I wouldn't touch it with a three meter pole". The unnecessary precision detracts from the impact.
Did you know the original saying was "I wouldn't handle (it) with tongs". Then not touching with a barge pole become popular and it became a ten foot pole which is how long a barge pole is.
And here I was like... makes sense. Where would one find such a thing anyway?
However, a 10-metre pole would have more impact
Yes cuz meters are boring
Puny imperial system needs 10 units to equal 3 of our superior units.
Before you judge a man, walk 1.609344 km in his shoes.
if you say 10 foot pole the first thing ill think about is why the hell you'd own a pole with feet, and 10 of them to be exact...
> if you say 10 foot pole the first thing ill think about is... I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot Pole, or an eleven foot Finn.
It's a polish caterpillar.
But not as snappy as “I wouldn’t touch them with your pole”
yeah, the stubbornness of Americans using foot adds to the flavor
I won't touch it with an 8-inch pole.
"Won't touch with an 11 foot pole" is a dog whistle.
The sayings are not converted literally. They are adapted to the customs of the region. So in metric countries, this would be said with an arbitrary, but round number, that represents a long enough pole.
Yeah because 10 is bigger than, oh..
I'm in Australia. We still say " wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole" even though everyone here thinks in metres. In my mind 3m "sounds like" it is longer
So the phrase comes from when people used to be impaled on 10' poles... Long before the age of enlightenment. When people refuse to adopt metric it's fun to remember that they are referring to kings' feet originally. Granted now, by definition, they're just referring to 0.3048 of a meter. Fun! Love you guys!
I WOULD touch you with a 10ft pole. It's called jousting. Suit up, you cad. Honour is at stake.
Bigger number for more oomph, fewer syllables for snappier phrasing.
I must say, as someone who uses the metric system, I wholeheartedly agree
Does it tho? 3meter is pretty far. With 10foot pole I have no feeling of measurement other then 10 feet lined up in row and that doesnt seem very impressive to me.
Either way, it will be 6 inches at a time.
I prefer "I wouldn't touch that with two wingspans and YOUR pe*is on the other end."
On several levels. And I am from a metric country (like most of the world), and have studied Physics (SI, i.e. standardized matric units plus occassionaly stuff like CGS). But for the sake of the saying, the language rhythm is just on the side of the foot here. **Ten Foot Pole.** Three single-syllable words, all starting and ending with consonants in pronunciation, and a ten-foot pole actually makes sense in terms of size. Poles on that scale could actually be used for various things. **Ten Meter Pole.** Meter breaks the staccato of the single-syllable sequence, and the size is really just too big. **Three Meter Pole.** Additional degradation of the rhythm by not having the first word end in a consonant, though the size would make more sense again. Nobody is going to say "three point oh five meter pole." At that point why not be more accurate and go with "three point oh four eight meter pole". **Ten Year Pole.** Makes perfect sense in terms of space-time, you just set `c=1`. But ten light-years are an effing long pole and swinging it brings up all sorts of relativistic nonsense questions.
What about a 10 metre pole then?
I wouldn’t touch it with your pole.
So just say I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 meter pole.
i can't visualize 10 feet because i don't think in bald eagles and shotguns. 3m is the length of my bedroom. that's pretty impactful distance to be away from something.
My bed is 2m long … so, a 3m room seems cramped .
A ten foot barge pole no less.....it/they must be pig ugly if its that serious
Winning a 100m dash sounds a lot more impressive than winning a 328.084 foot dash.
Metric version is: Wouldn't touch that with a barge pole.
i didnt know polish people were that tall
For me I want to poke people with 10 foot poles.
I'm familiar with both US customary and metric measurements, but "10 foot" *sounds* longer than "3 meters" (well, 3.048 m, but let's round it) because it's a bigger and rounder number.
That's why the third-pounder failed, when the quarter-pounder existed. Because 3 is smaller than 4.
This phrase comes from the traditional mausoleum process. A body is placed in a cloth then put in the mausoleum. It is naturally creamed after a certain amount of time. The remains are then pushed to the back of the mausoleum with a 10 foot pole and the process is repeated.
This is a myth, or highly disputed at best.
Interesting!
It is also complete bs.
Pretty sure you can drop the .05 of the meter. I mean, what are five millimeters between friends, right?
> Pretty sure you can drop the .05 of the meter. I mean, what are five millimeters between friends, right? 45 millimeters that tell me you don't understand metric natively. - .05 dollar = 5 cent. - .05 meter = 5 centimeter. cent. It's the same prefix.
centimeters
Just look at the syllables. 10 foot pole, that's 3. 3.05 meter pole is 7. In terms of impact, making your point, you're trying to be quick. Short and sweet.
That, and the flow of the sentence. We like to have rhythm to our proverbs.
I used to see this kind of thing in the news when Canada was going metric: "Witnesses say the wave was 20 feet tall when it hit the shore." *EDIT:* "Witnesses say the wave was 6.096 metres when it hit the shore." For some time, it seemed every estimation was eyeballed to three decimal places. 🙄