What The Hail???

[Andrea Morrow]

FWIW, when I've gone outside after a hailstorm, the bits of hail have
generally flattened out on impact.  A few years ago when we had
golfball-size hail, it looked like some kind of weird crystal coaster when
we picked it up.  Most recently, we had the dime-size variety, and the
pieces on my front sidewalk did indeed look like dimes.  Thick dimes, but
definitely not spherical.
Andrea

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: What The Hail???
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8/12/2008 10:43 AM, Barbara Need wrote:
> >I have also noticed that pictures of hail are likely to include a
> >coins for scale, so that might contribute to the terms.
>
> Yes it might, but of course in a two-dimensional representation the
> diameter of a circle (at least when presented perpendicular to the
> viewer!) is easier to "measure" than that of a sphere (which might
> have shadow or highlight effects, etc.).
>
> Joel
>
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