I read in an opinion piece today that there are 584 bookstores in Norway - and 974 public libraries. Puts things in perspective. Twice as many place to borrow books as to buy them (well - certain books are sold a lot more place - newsagents sell bestseller paperbacks, large grocery stores sell food-related books etc.) And still, on Saturday we visited four different bookstores, and excluding holiday "curiosity visits", the last time I used the library was probably five years ago. Used to go all the time as a student and when I was a kid.
Why?
Well, as I've grown older and gained a "disposable income" it is a lot easier to subscribe to journals and magazines, and with a broadband connection a wee bit of suring and emailing is also going on. And then there is the fact that a regular paperback costs less than a double latte and a large piece of cake at a cafe... (give or take) or less than a six pack of beer at the store. In other words - dirt cheap. And it makes for excellent gifts - a book is a distinct item (ref. ISBN code), so if you say to somebody before x-mas; "gee, i'd love to read the new Neal Stephenson novel Quicksilver" - it is easy for them to figure out how to get it - wheras if you say "a new shirt would be nice" you stick them with the choices (size, fabric, color, brand, pricerange etc etc) and still might end up returning it.
On another note - "rule of thumb" - what does it mean, really? You can rule a distance with a thumb? You can vote "live or let die" at the Colloseum in ancient roman games? Or....? Google best guesses come down to:
Thumb hoax debunk and " the thumb as a convenient measuring tool, the distance to the first knuckle usually being about one inch"
Another answer - "knew their trade so well they rarely
or never fell back on the use of such things as rulers" ... and then pages of "feminist" discussion on the urban myth of wifebeating rulings.
Roman thumbs - way down, suggest that there is actually no evidence of thumbs up/down, just '' "with the thumb turned". No ancient source describes what exactly this signified''
So? The fact that it is in common use in the various Nordic languages as well might imply that some American law-rule is not all that appropriate after all... and as a Finnish guy wrote - the "norse" for an inch is "tomme" eller "tum" (with "tommel" and tummel" being the modern spelling of "thumb" in danish/norwegian and swedish respectively). But hey, why bother thinking about foreign languages when you can shout bloody murder?
...and the sun now stays for a whole 6 hours and then some twenty minutes more than three months ago ...
