Heard in a movie, The Fourth Protocol: (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


>From Google Books and Amazon, we find a passage on p. 319:

"He was looking for a globe the size of a small football or a rodlike
tube that might be secreted in the compartment."

No other use of "football" seems close to what Wilson described, and
"Chinese football" doesn't appear at all.

So it must be an invention of the screenwriter, and not from Forsyth.

> -
>
> Without the context immediately available, I am assuming that what's
> meant that the object in question is far smaller than a "football".
> Standard (Size 5) ball is 71 cm (28 in.) in circumference or about
22.5
> cm (9 in.) in diameter. So any size significantly smaller than 9 in.
in
> diameter might be the target of that reference. If this was not the
> meaning, I give up.
>
>       VS-)
>
> On 3/2/2011 7:08 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> > British speakers:
> >
> > A. "About the size of a football."
> >
> > B. "Yes. A Chinese football."
> >
> >
> > _Chinese football_?
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org