Scientific Conversions

[Garson O'Toole]

The short link I gave to the 1991 list of humorous terms for
measurement does not work. I apologize. The link was tested before
posting but apparently the gremlins of link-rot work are following a
new faster schedule. The following link might work for up to five
minutes:

http://goo.gl/2eIqb

Also, the following link will be split but can be manually reassembled:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.humor/browse_thread/thread/da78532f9d7df33f/1d87afa9e4a3de9e?q=hoarsepower#1d87afa9e4a3de9e


On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 3:12 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> James Harbeck wrote:
>> I was expecting to see among them the basic unit of beauty, the
>> millihelen -- a unit of beauty sufficient to launch one ship (since
>> Helen had the face that launched a thousand ships).
>
> Many of the items on the list of humorous measurements posted by Joel
> are on a list that was posted to the newsgroup rec.humor.funny twenty
> years ago on June 5, 1991.
>
> The millihelen mentioned by James Harbeck is included in the 1991
> list. Here is a link to the post in the Google Groups repository:
>
> http://goo.gl/4TgYB
>
> Millihelen is listed in Wikitionary, in Wikipedia, in the Urban
> Dictionary, and in the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. I do
> not see the term in the OED. Wikitionary gives a 1983 cite. HDAS
> presents a 1969 cite.
>
> I found a citation dated November 13, 1958 which I will post about
> when I get a chance to look a bit further. Or someone can scoop me.
> The Wikitionary entry reprints an interesting claim made by Asimov.
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/millihelen
>
> Garson
>

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