[HPFGU-Movie] Fahrenheit in GOF

[Richard]

At 23:38 03/12/2005 , AnitaKH wrote:

><...> the announcer mentions that the temperature is 61 degrees 
>Fahrenheit.  I don't know that I would have been bothered by it, even if 
>I'd heard it, because I don't instantly think, "Wait a minute, Great 
>Britain uses centigrade, not Fahrenheit."  So, the questions are:
>
>   1) Were you/would you be bothered by this?

If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have thought there was something 
wrong. Being a modern kind of bloke, I don't understand Fahrenheit and 
thought that he says "25 degrees, or 61 Fahrenheit". But now I've checked 
and 61F should be 16C, so now it is indeed bothering me. :-) Thank you for 
adding something more for me to pay attention to when I next see the movie, 
as I may have mis-heard!

>   2) Is the Fahrenheit temperature used in UK broadcasts?

Depends on the broadcast(er); while you assume correctly that we use 
Celcius as our main gauge, Fahrenheit equivalents frequently get mentions, 
especially when drawing attention to extreme or unusual temperatures. Some 
announcers (especially on radio stations/shows with an "older demographic") 
tend to do so as a matter of course.

Also, for some reason, a lot of people (both your average Joe on the street 
and professional announcers) use C when talking cold temperatures but 
prefer F when it's hot - perhaps because it sounds more impressive that 
way, e.g. "it's 90 degrees out there" sounds so different to "... 32 ..." 
(on the two days of the year, if we're lucky, that our temperatures get 
anywhere close to that kind of heat), and conversely "the temperature 
tonight will drop to 2 below" sounds so much better than "... 28...". In 
other words, listening to British weather forecasts takes a bit of getting 
used to. :-)

(My thanks to http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm)

(we're the same with linear measurements: most people - myself included - 
tend to talk miles rather than kilometers when they're big, but millimeters 
rather than fractions of an inch when they're small.)

>   3) If not, is the announcer saying something different in the UK 
> version of the movie?

See above. I shall check the next time see I the movie (probably Monday or 
Tuesday, which will be my 8th complete viewing, and probably the last for a 
while). But I wouldn't expect them to make different recordings of 
something so inconsequential as the voice on the radio Frank is listening to.

--
Richard, who'd hoped to do some catching up this evening but has got busy 
with something else.