How long is piece string?
Phrase. How long is a piece of string? (colloquial, often humorous, rhetorical question) Used as a response to a question such as “How long will it take?” or “How big is it?” when the length or size is unknown, infinite, variable, or relative.
Is a piece of string infinite?
But what appears to be a simple task soon turns into a mind-bending voyage of discovery where nothing is as it seems. An encounter with leading mathematician Marcus du Sautoy reveals that Alan’s short length of string may in fact be infinitely long.
What is the meaning of piece of string?
said when you cannot answer a question about the length, size, amount, etc. of something because it could be any length, size, etc.: Asked how long this will take, she replies: “How long is a piece of string?”
How long is a piece of string etymology?
This dictionary claims that string is attested from 1175 developing from Old English streng meaning line or cord and links this to Proto Germanic *straŋgi-z which was from Indo European*strongh. There are several Germanic cognates such as Danish and Norwegian streng.
What does the phrase how long mean?
Used literally: what duration. How long have you lived in Chicago? He won’t tell me how long he is going to stay. adverb.
What is another word for so long?
In this page you can discover 14 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for so-long, like: goodby, sayonara, good-day, cheerio, good-by, good-bye, goodbye, adieu, adios, arrivederci and au-revoir.
What does how many mean?
—used to ask or talk about an amount How many people were there? I was surprised by how many people were there. How many times do I have to tell you to lock the door?
What does how far mean?
1Used to ask how great a distance is. ‘they wanted to know how far he could travel’ More example sentences.
What does I am concerned mean?
phrase. DEFINITIONS1. 1. used when you are giving your opinion about something, especially when this may be different from other people’s opinions. As far as I’m concerned, the issue is over and done with.
How far do we use?
We use how far to talk about distance. How far is our classroom from the washroom? It’s about 30 metres. We use how long to talk about the amount of time something takes.
Is it correct to say thus far?
1 Answer. There is no significant difference between the two. Most dictionaries include a sense for thus defining it as a synonym for so, but I can’t think of any cases where it would be used as such other than in thus far, so you shouldn’t consider thus and so interchangeable other than in that one set phrase.
Can you end a sentence with thus far?
‘Thus far’ is the same as ‘so far’. It is used either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence. The comma before the phrase is not required if it is at the end of the sentence.
Is thus a formal word?
Before moving on to the particular words, it should be noted that “thus”, “therefore”, and “hence” are all rather formal and much more common in writing than in everyday conversation, where they are almost always substituted by “so”.
What is the use of thus in a sentence?
Use the adverb thus in place of words like therefore or so when you want to sound proper. Use thus interchangeably with words like consequently, ergo, hence, and just like that. For example, if you want to sound fancy you could say no one showed up for water aerobics, thus the class was cancelled. It had to be thus.
What do you mean by thus?
1 : in this or that manner or way described it thus. 2 : to this degree or extent : so thus far. 3 : because of this or that : hence, consequently. 4 : as an example.
What is the difference between so and hence?
As adverbs the difference between so and hence is that so is to the (explicitly stated) extent that while hence is (archaic) from here, from this place, away.
What means hence?
1 : from this place : away. 2a archaic : henceforth. b : from this time four years hence. 3 : because of a preceding fact or premise : therefore.
Where do we use hence?
‘Hence’ is typically used in a sentence to show a cause and effect relationship between two parts of a sentence: ‘Because this happened, hence this will now happen. ‘ In this way, it’s used in a similar way to words like ‘therefore,’ ‘thus,’ and ‘consequently.