on stones and concrete ( was: Re: [pmwiki-users] View modes)

[Neil Herber]

At 2005-08-09  01:51 PM -0400, Radu is rumored to have said:
>Methinks we should never cast things in stone. Quite rigid, that material...

My pet peeve threshold has been breached! ;-)

I think this is the third or fourth use of "cast in stone".

If you "cast" a stone, then you throw it.

Items are either "carved in stone" (such as an epitaph on a headstone) or 
"cast in concrete" (such as the mounts for street lights and roadsigns). 
Both are hard to alter.

Just in case it comes up, cement is a component of concrete, so things are 
not cast in cement, strictly speaking.

You could carve something in concrete once it had set, or you could mark it 
before it is set. For examples of the latter, see almost any concrete 
sidewalk.


Neil

Neil Herber
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