Comment by munk-a
5 days ago
Another colloquial saying to back this up is that "Oh, that house is five acres down the road" or, for a non-standard unit, "The store is three blocks away". We often use area measurements for length if it's convenient.
The pixel is a unit of area - we just occasionally use units of area to measure length.
> Another colloquial saying to back this up is that "Oh, that house is five acres down the road" or, for a non-standard unit, "The store is three blocks away". We often use area measurements for length if it's convenient.
I have never heard someone use the first instance, and I wouldn't understand what it meant. I mean, I could buy that it meant that there is a five-acre plot between that house and where we are now, but it wouldn't give me any useful idea of how far the house is other than "not too close." Perhaps you have in mind that, since the "width" of an acre is a furlong, a house 5 acres away is 5 furlongs away?
I think your final sentence would be a more specific/more correct to say "five acres away", but in reality I don't think I've ever heard anyone use a furlong as a serious unit in conversation.
I have heard sentences like "the property line is two acres into the woods" and it was understood that he was using acre like you might use "block" in a city - "the property line is two acre widths into the woods". As you say, that's just a furlong, but I doubt either of us knew that at the time.