Talk:Span (unit)

I removed the following paragraph:

In Swahili, the analogue of span is unguru. It is the width from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the middle finger.

1 unguru: ~ 6 fungu'lu; ~ 8 inches; ~ 0.21 m

This is likely a hoax entry, see this slashdot post. I am currently contacting Swahili speakers. AxelBoldt 16:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, in Swahili it is called "shibiri". You can check it here. --83.35.138.204 22:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or on Swahili Wikipedia. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 17:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Being picky here, but shouldn't the picture containing hand-based measurements include the 'inch' which is supposed to be the distance from the thumb-joint to the tip (or is it from the thumb's 'knuckle' to the mid thumb joint?) either way, it ought to be included 139.149.31.232 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added on 09:29, 20 February 2009 (UTC).[reply]

12 inches my foot

The English foot (0.3048 m) is substantially longer than the adult male human foot (0.263 m per a source cited in Foot#Human foot). The discrepancy comes from the foot actually being the length of a rigid shoe. However, the hand is seldom covered rigidly in such a manner. So where does the discrepancy between a human span (about 0.20 m) and the unit span (0.23 m) come from? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 03:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]