Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Upstart Americans brandish alligators at the almighty Reg Standards Soviet

Thou shalt respect the Osman and keep your distance, rebels

An American local council has dared to challenge the almighty Vulture Central Standards Soviet by proposing alligators as a standard unit of measure for social distancing during the coronavirus lockdown.

Social media bods for Leon County, a parish somewhere in a place called Florida, many thousands of miles from important parts of the world like Bognor Regis, has defied the recent decree of the Standards Soviet setting the Osman (as in giant Brit TV bloke Richard) as the unit of social distancing.

Social distancing is the government edict which says thou shalt stay at least six feet (or two metres if you're into new-fangled measurements) away from your fellow national inmates during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Rather than knuckling down and getting with the programme, however, Leon County decided to put forward its own rival measure. The cheek of it!

"This is a reminder that during COVID 19, please remember to keep at least 1 large alligator between you and everyone else at all times," Leon County said on Facebook, as reported by US telly channel CNN and spotted by one of our ever-vigilant readers noble standards-upholding praetorians.

The County also took to Twitter to show off its plan.

Of course, this is nonsense. Average American alligators measure around 21 and a half linguine in length, or just over a tenth of a brontosaurus if that’s too difficult to imagine. The largest specimens, by contrast, measure about half a standardised double-decker bus from snout to tail. All of this is far longer than the single Osman of social distancing, a much shorter 14.l strands of linguine. While the US measure increases the distance between you and a potentially infectious person, it's… well, just not cricket.

For a US state the size of 8,100 milliWales (or 0.07 Democratic Republic of Congos), this is just too far.

CNN, unhelpfully, decided to try and trample all over the Standards Soviet's turf by proposing all kinds of silly measures.

"Other ways to visualize 6 feet include imagining two golden retrievers, the width of an average sedan, a sofa, a dining room table, or the length of a mattress," their scribe wrote.

Anyone know the length of two average family hounds? If so, we may - may - consider adding it to the Register Standards Converter. ®

Bootnote

Australia's embassy in the USA complicated matters further with this effort, which is now appearing in outdoor ads down under.

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like