C1.

2 Advanced English

UNIT 6B. NUMBERS AND MEASUREMENTS. Vocabulary notes

1 Mathematical terms

= can also be expressed more informally as either makes or is.

+ can be expressed as and, so 2 + 2 = 4 can be said as two and two makes / is four.

In multiplication, we can also say things informally, e.g. three fours are twelve for 3 × 4 = 12.

2 Diagrams

Chart and table are sometimes interchangeable and you may also hear bar graph for this type of
diagram. However, we don’t say *line chart or *pie graph.

3 Imperial and metric measurements

Most of the world uses metric measurements. In fact, the USA, Myanmar, and Liberia are the
only countries in the world today which only use imperial measurements. The UK, which
introduced the metric system in 1965, still frequently uses imperial measurements, e.g.
distances on road signs are given in miles, beer is sold in pints, people’s height is often given in
feet and inches, etc.

In the UK, a person’s weight is expressed in stones (where 1 stone = 14 pounds); however, in
the US weight is expressed in pounds. NB We don’t use stones for ‘things’. There is also a
metric tonne (= 1,000kg), which is slightly lighter than an imperial ton (= 1,016. 05 kg).

4 Idioms and expressions with measurements

Apart from stand out a mile, we can also say stick out a mile, which means the same.

There is also the idiom stick / stand out like a sore thumb, which is similar in meaning, but means
‘be easy to notice in a bad way’.