Not all units of measurement are for polite company

Posted: November 12, 2025 | Author: samsywoodsy | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: books, church, fiction, funny, Humour, language, measurement, vicar, writing | Leave a comment

Actually, I’m not just talking about genitals.

I’m going to (I’m always going to), but not right now.

Genitals are wonderful things, inspirational even, but there are indeed alternative units of measurements.

One of which is inches.

Then you have ‘feet’ – which are also inspirational, despite being gross.

‘Miles’ is most common, but no-one seems to mind ‘miles’ much at all.

“How many miles to the discotheque?” – we used to ask each other in French at school, and despite the obvious moral issues of speaking French, no one could question the integrity of the unit of measurement.

This measurement, and many others, are always fine.

Some aren’t.

Some units of measurement are simply not for Sunday tea-time.

“One lump or two” when proffered sugar is as vulgar as things should get when we’re talking about spoonful’s of anything.

But there are worse, and Sunday tea-time can become an event with more Effing and Jeffing than fucking Jeffrey.

“How many racial slurs to the vicarage?” we’d ask in the old days, and people would answer – awfully. Racistly (racist slurs are really, really racist!). And most importantly – we’d know how far away the vicarage was.

And things would only deteriorate from there (Sunday tea-time).

Some people prefer feet (perverts, but whatever).

Some, miles.

Most, don’t like units of measurement being racial slurs.

Just ask the vicar.

The vicar, such as he is, prefers to know just “how many knobs to the bank?” and he gets his answer too.

The discotheque, the vicarage and the bank are all within reach, with a variety of units of measurement applied and all manner of folk deeply offended, none the less informed as to the distance that matters to them.

I’ve only one piece of advice now, and it’s not to know your audience (yuk).

My advice is – just say and do something.

Yes it might be deeply offensive, but, well – who needs to be employed really?

More importantly, who really needs to be unoffended?

I don’t.

But I do need to know how far away the bank, discotheque and vicarage are.

Because I’m planning one hell of a a Sunday tea-time.

Sam

(P.S Sunday tea-time might in fact not be that great. But you’re invited!)

---