On page 19 of today's 'Daily Mail' is an advert aimed at first-time buyers headed: 'Made to Measure Mortgages from Halifax'.

It pictures a tape-measure laid out in the shape of a house.

It is quite clearly an inch tape-measure. The units are divided into eighths, but more relevantly there is a black blob clearly visible at 12, 24, 36 and 48 inches.

Slightly bizarrely, the tape ends at 52 inches. Perhaps Leonard, xcole or others may have an explanation for this?

Maybe there was no need to keep the tape going? Maybe 4'4 is the smallest they service.

or 52" waist

there is no telling how advert-people think
except that they are apt to be visual
maybe inches with dark blobs just looked better
to the guy/gal graphic-artist and 4 or 5 dark
blobs seemed the right number with a little
tag end to show it continues instead of a blob
right at the end.

did they have quarters and eighths of inch divisions,
i hope?

seriously, it sounds like the tape measure of a
seamstress or tailor, so that must mean in UK
you do not have so many fat people---the length of
the tailor's tape is determined by the waistline of
the fattest person he has to stretch it around,
because the last thing a tailor wants to do is
run out of tape when he is determining your girth
and have to hold his thumb where it came to and
stretch it again. surely Tony you can figure out
these things for yourself without asking the "x
perts".

"Surely Tony you can figure these things out for yourself?"

ANS. No, I am in a lower intellectual division than you, Leonard.

P.S. The tape in the Halifax advert is an actual tape-measure, photographed. The half-inch divisions are clearly shown; otherwise the inches are clearly divided into eighths of an inch.

ANS. No, I am in a lower intellectual division than you,

I protest. I shall presently be made a laughingstock
if not one already. no more talk of intellectual divisions (whether quarters, eighths, sixteenths or thirtyseconds)

You mentioned girth and that seems reasonable to me.

Personally I am a 40 and 46 is about the largest you can find jeans for (if I can trust my memory of the last time I shopped for readymade trousers) so that means in England the tape measures can safely stop at 52 inches.

BTW that was a gallant effort to legitimize the oke measure. And who knows it may have found its way into Britain at one time or another. I associate it though with Greek islands---an oka of oranges, half an oka of bread or dates. Has anyone else encountered or heard of it outside this discussion?