Use of Block As A Unit of Distance
In North American English the term block is used as an informal unit of distance; for example, when giving directions (e.g. "It's three blocks from here.").
In British English the term is scarcely used to convey a measure of distance due to the lack of 'blocks' in most cities; it is, however, used when making short trips around a nearby road of an estate (e.g. "I'm taking the dog out for a walk around the block").
Read more about this topic: City Block
Famous quotes containing the words block, unit and/or distance:
“Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically—for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist—but then what isn’t?”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“During the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I ... [urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a constitutional amendment enacting that all representative bodies shall consist of women and men in equal numbers, whether elected or nominated or coopted or registered or picked up in the street like a coroner’s jury. In the case of elected bodies the only way of effecting this is by the Coupled Vote. The representative unit must not be a man or a woman but a man and a woman.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Egoism is the law of perspective as it applies to feelings, according to which what is closest to us appears to be large and weighty, while size and weight decrease with our distance from things.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)