A college friend of mine recently told me that the way I (a pennsylvanian) measure a drive is unique to my area of the nation. If someone were to ask me how far it it to Philadelphia from my home, i would reply "about 1 and 1/2 hours" instead of "about 90 miles". Is this truely unique to my area or is this practice common world/nationwide?

Thanks

 

Nope... I say the same thing.

How far from Oshkosh to Milwaukee? Little over an hour.
How far from Oshkosh to Appleton? About a half an hour.

 

Before things tightened up in Texas it was a six pack and a big bag of chips

 

hmmm...maybe texans are not the right people to ask!!!

 

Years ago I worked for a small software company in Orange, CA. A customer called in to find out how far our office was from LAX. The salesman replied, "About an hour." The customer said, "Yes, but how far is it?" The salesman said, "I just told you: About an hour!"

People in Southern California always measure distance in hours and minutes.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by magician
[B]Years ago I worked for a small software company in Orange, CA.

 

Here in my part of Canada, time is slower than everywhere else on earth so we have to speak in terms of distance. It even screws up our speeds, since speed = distance/time, so travelling at an indicated rate of 60 mph is actually more like 120 mph, since time is going so slowly! I'm serious - it's happened to me many a time. One second I'm doing 60 and the next I'm doing 120 and I can't remember doing anything different...

 

Actually, we do measure in terms of time - I think that's the most common. No one cares about actual distance UNLESS they're looking for an unmarked turn-off or something and they need to know RIGHT where it is.

 

As someone mentioned above...time is the only way to measure apples to apples.

 

yes, but when someone asks what time its is, do you say 9 miles?