Froggie needing help with English

Ultimate Etapes

Dear all,

I'm currently translating an English book about cycling. I have a question about terminology.

How do you understand "clicks" in this sentence :

"Three kilometres from the pass, the road ramps up savagely, or
at least it is likely to feel that way after 20 clicks of upward effort".

Thanks in anticipation.
Mat

imposter2.0

'Click' is slang for kilometre. Not being funny, but 10 seconds on google will tell you that.

Either that, or the guy's bottom bracket needs changing.

homers_double

I don't think slang translates very well, hence the question.

No need to be arsey about it.

imposter2.0

homers double wrote:

I don't think slang translates very well, hence the question.

No need to be arsey about it.

Pointing out a more expeditious way of finding an answer is hardly being 'arsey', hence why I qualified my comment first. Slang obviously doesn't translate very well. But it still takes 10 seconds on google to find the answer, slang or not.

Garry H

Froggie, the sentence works ok.

kingstongraham

If I google "Not being funny", it says "UK way of letting someone know you're about to say something that might sound weird or insulting, and you mean it. Also used to display general impatience/frustration."

ben@31

A click is military slang for 1 kilometre.
There's different rumours on its origins...
- if you adjusted an artillery guns elevation by 1 click, the shell would land 1km further away
- it was a phonetic saying, to make radio conversation or talking with allied nations easier.
- a vehicles odometer made a clicking noise everytime the odometer does another km.

gethinceri

First option above is nonsense.

imposter2.0

KingstonGraham wrote:

If I google "Not being funny", it says "UK way of letting someone know you're about to say something that might sound weird or insulting, and you mean it. Also used to display general impatience/frustration."

Seems google has several different definitions (as you might expect from a phrase which is so evidently open to interpretation) - this one more closely resembles my intended usage...

http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/i ... -funny-but

lakesluddite

Most of my understanding of this comes from watching Vietnam war films, and as they were always US films, I'd always assumed it was slang for 'mile' (as the US seem to use Km even less than we Brits do). Now I learn it's Km!

Every day is a school day!

bianchimoon

as it's kilometre we're talking about shirley it's a Klick not a Click

pinno

bianchimoon wrote:

as it's kilometre we're talking about shirley it's a Klick not a Click

You won't get much mileage out of that joke.

Anyway, fire away Froggie bloke - ignore the curmudgeonly pedantic pedalling proletariat (Les Rost Biff).

cal_stewart

ben@31 wrote:

A click is military slang for 1 kilometre.
There's different rumours on its origins...
- if you adjusted an artillery guns elevation by 1 click, the shell would land 1km further away
- it was a phonetic saying, to make radio conversation or talking with allied nations easier.
- a vehicles odometer made a clicking noise everytime the odometer does another km.

Not heard clicks in years, k's now.

LakesLuddite wrote:

Most of my understanding of this comes from watching Vietnam war films, and as they were always US films, I'd always assumed it was slang for 'mile' (as the US seem to use Km even less than we Brits do). Now I learn it's Km!

Every day is a school day!

Map reading is far easier in metric, anyone who's used a 1" to 1 mile scale map will agree