Thursday, November 12, 2009

Of Celsius and the one I can't spell

I live in the Northern Hemisphere.

It is November.

It is 75 degrees Fahrenheit today, tomorrow, yesterday, the whole rest of the week. Try not to be jealous :)

According to my trusty companion Google it is 23.8 degrees Celsius. Which has sidetracked my whole other purpose for this post. My question for you metric folks is this: Does the number 23.8 actually sound pleasant to you? I mean, when I, as a child of the non metric world, hear the number 75 and the word degrees after it I melt into just a bit of happiness. Perfect, sunny, beautiful, warm weather awaits me. Because of this any number between 75 and 85 has a positive connotation for me whereas 23.8 would mean heavy coats, sweaters, mittens and probably setting fire to a trash can for warmth, but for you it might connote all the positive pleasures I listed above. I find that though much of the time I speak the same language as the people I interact with, (and you must be proficient in English to even be reading this), that the things we associate as pleasurable or positive differ greatly region by region, even office cubicle by office cubicle, and isn’t dependant on personal experience even, sometimes it is just dependant on quirks like Fahrenheit versus Celsius.

23.8 indeed.

Celsius is far easier to spell though.

1 comment:

Sallyacious said...

It's been mostly lovely here too. In the 70's this past weekend. I went out on Sunday with a friend and she and I kept looking at each other and saying, "November?" to each other.

In Moscow, it's been in the 30's. Not the warm in Europe kind of 30's but the add another blanket to the bed kind. Looks like I picked the right year to leave.