42p = 42 pounds? Pennies? Five portions = ?

Forums: Esl, English, Grammar, Efl, Not Grammar
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Context:

No excuses: Five portions of fruit and veg can cost as little as 42p, reveals charity

More:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1380623/Fruit-vegetables-Five-day-cost-little-42p.html

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Type: Question • Score: 6 • Views: 7,707 • Replies: 72

[+4] - Robert Gentel - 04/29/2011Ideally said disagreement occurs when one is not being stubbornly wrongheaded with the people trying to help him.
[+3] - sozobe - 04/28/2011That refers to pence. (British currency.)
[+3] - Setanta - 04/29/2011Which is heavier, Oristar, 115 ml of lettuce, or 115 ml of beans? You just don't get it. That's not my fault, though, and i'm not going to waste any more time--you're being pig-headed.
[+3] - Robert Gentel - 04/29/2011You still aren't getting it oristarA. It's a common joke for kids in English: "What is heavier, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?" You'll learn more easily if you don't let...

@oristarA,

That refers to pence. (British currency.)

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@oristarA,

Probably 'Pence.' Here in America we would say 'Pennies.'

Cycloptichorn

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Thank you both.

Forty two pounds are only expressed as ￡42?

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

Thank you both.

Forty two pounds are only expressed as ￡42?

Yes, in terms of the English Pound as a currency, or '42 lbs' if you are using the word pound as a measurement of weight. I don't know why 'lbs.' is used when they measure weight...

As for 'Five portions,' it's saying that that amount of money buys enough for 5 people to eat at meal.

Cheers
Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

I don't know why 'lbs.' is used when they measure weight...

The unit is descended from the Roman libra (wiki)...

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@Cycloptichorn,

Thanks

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@oristarA,

The 5 portions refers to the variety of fruit and vegetables essential to a balanced diet. The World Health Organisation recommends at least 5 portions per person per day.

1 Reply

@laughoutlood,

laughoutlood wrote:

The 5 portions refers to the variety of fruit and vegetables essential to a balanced diet. The World Health Organisation recommends at least 5 portions per person per day.

Thanks.

But it turns out to cause a confusion in me.

More details (with pics would be best)?

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@oristarA,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/nutrition/healthy_fruitveg.shtml

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/5aday/pages/5adayhome.aspx/

warning these sites may contain pictures of fruit and vegetables and traces of nuts

1 Reply

@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

Thank you both.

Forty two pounds are only expressed as ￡42?

1. Forty-two UK pounds is a sum of money. Sums of money, weights, distances, (and other things as well) are "singular quantities".

2. Forty-two pounds (the hyphen is often seen in UK English) can be expressed as £42 but in accounting and when it is desired to be precise e.g. when writing a cheque we write £42.00.

3. A sum of money under one pound such as forty-two pence can be written causally as 42p but as before, it is more precisely written as £0.42.

1 Reply

@laughoutlood,

laughoutlood wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/nutrition/healthy_fruitveg.shtml

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/5aday/pages/5adayhome.aspx/

warning these sites may contain pictures of fruit and vegetables and traces of nuts

One portion is how many grams?

(I've read through one page of the links you offerred. However, those foreign web page showed very slowly here, because stupid and insane Chinese filter put its nose into it to check out anything that I could not open another link)

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@contrex,

contrex wrote:

oristarA wrote:

Thank you both.

Forty two pounds are only expressed as ￡42?

1. Forty-two UK pounds is a sum of money. Sums of money, weights, distances, (and other things as well) are "singular quantities".

2. Forty-two pounds (the hyphen is often seen in UK English) can be expressed as £42 but in accounting and when it is desired to be precise e.g. when writing a cheque we write £42.00.

3. A sum of money under one pound such as forty-two pence can be written causally as 42p but as before, it is more precisely written as £0.42.

Thanks

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A portion of vegetables may not be a specific weight--for example, if you want to get iron in your diet, eating one leek will do the trick for you, but you could ten pounds of beans and not get enough. You want a variety of different vegetables and different types of vegetables to get the nutritonal value you need. The United States Department of Agriculture, for a variety of reasons, gives one half cup as the portion size for fruits and vegetables. How much it weighs is meaningless--a cup is a measure of volume. One half cup is about 115 mililiters.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

A portion of vegetables may not be a specific weight--for example, if you want to get iron in your diet, eating one leek will do the trick for you, but you could ten pounds of beans and not get enough. You want a variety of different vegetables and different types of vegetables to get the nutritonal value you need. The United States Department of Agriculture, for a variety of reasons, gives one half cup as the portion size for fruits and vegetables. How much it weighs is meaningless--a cup is a measure of volume. One half cup is about 115 mililiters.

So five portions a day are about 0.6 kilogram of fruit and vegs a day?
That hits the point surely.
Thank you.

2 Replies

@oristarA,

No.

Kilograms are weight. The portions are measured by volume, not weight.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

No.

Kilograms are weight. The portions are measured by volume, not weight.

Who cares? Five 115 mililiters are about 0.6 kilograms in weight.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

It appears you didn't understand Setanta's explanation at all.

Different items of the same volume are not necessarily the same weight, so the reference to weight is nonsensical when volume is the measurement.

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@oristarA,

No, that's not what it means at all. Which weighs more, 115 mililiters of water, or 115 mililiters of sand? The common expression in English is that you're comparing apples to oranges. In this case, you comparing measures of weight to measures of volume.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

No, that's not what it means at all. Which weighs more, 115 mililiters of water, or 115 mililiters of sand? The common expression in English is that you're comparing apples to oranges. In this case, you comparing measures of weight to measures of volume.

I'm right, Set and EhBeth. Very Happy

My comparison is a short-cut to clear the barrier for understanding, like adding an auxiliary line to a puzzling geometric figure to make it easy to solve.

Remember: We are talking about portions of fruit and veg, not anything else, so your comparison with sand is an ungrounded aberration. And EhBeth has ignored the fact that common fruit and vegs share almost same specific gravity! You can make an apple into a cup of juice, and get an impression: their weight is about equal to their volumn.

ehBeth wrote:

It appears you didn't understand Setanta's explanation at all.

Different items of the same volume are not necessarily the same weight, so the reference to weight is nonsensical when volume is the measurement.

1 Reply

42p = 42 pounds? Pennies? Five portions = ?

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