Wednesday December 14, 2005
The long and short of ‘foot’
I would have thought the question posed by PL (Dec 2) to be a good one and the answer given by Fadzilah Amin to be conclusive if I had not listened to an American folk era song called “Universal Soldier” about a month ago.
It was written and sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie in the 1960s as an anti-war song. She received a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts. She also holds degrees in both Oriental Philosophy and teaching.
The first bar goes like this:
He’s five foot two and he’s six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He’s all of 31 and he’s only 17
He’s been a soldier for a thousand years ...
In my opinion, in addition to the conventional logic given by Fadzilah Amin, good sounding and rhyme has a place here. Imagine changing the first line above to “He’s five feet two and he’s six foot four” – it just doesn’t sound smooth any more.
I did a quick run on the figures and concluded that for 5 ft 1 to 11, “ft” should be read as “foot” throughout. For 6 ft 1 to 11, it is “foot” except for 4, 5, 6 when it should be read as “feet” so that it rhymes. You can figure out the rest for yourselves. – Wong Sai Peng, Petaling Jaya
‘Six foot tall’ not wrong
I refer to Mahid bin Masseluang’s comment on my use of the sentence “She is six foot tall.” (Dec 9).
My sentence is not ungrammatical, because when “foot” is used as a unit of measurement, its plural form is either “foot or feet” (See Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2005 and the online Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Concise Oxford Dictionary 1995).
Based on my experience, “foot” is used more often than “feet” when indicating someone’s height, even if the word is not used as part of an attributive adjective.
Here are some examples from reputable British websites:
1. The first was said to be slim, six foot tall and wearing a black leather jacket and blue jeans; the second was also six foot tall, clean shaven and of heavy build.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/news/stories/200301/01/murder.shtml
2. At nearly six foot tall, she towers imperiously above the crowd, and leads behind her an entourage of publicists and minders.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/magazine.cfm?id=1322572002
– Fadzilah Amin
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