two hours northeast

StaticBounce

StaticBounce

Senior Member
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This context comes from an nbcnews.com article titled "F-35 fighter jet search turns to recovery as officials probe what happened in 'mishap'"

"The debris was discovered about two hours northeast of Joint Base Charleston in North Charleston."

What does two hours mean in this context?

1. The distance that can be traveled in an hour. (This one seems pretty obvious but on the other hand every car travels at different speed)

2. A unit of measure of longitude or right ascension, equal to 15° or 1/24 of a great circle. (I'm pretty bad at geography but I thought this has something to do with it)
 
    • StaticBounce said:
    1. The distance that can be traveled in an hour two hours. (This one seems pretty obvious but on the other hand every car travels at different speed)
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    The author of that article probably had this meaning in mind. If the author didn't mention the method or rate of travel, about two hours northeast of Joint Base Charleston doesn't tell the reader anything useful about where the debris was discovered.
     
    The article suggests that the wreckage is in Williamsburg County. What Google considers to be the center of Williamsburg County is a 1 hour and 45 minute drive from Joint Base Charleston.
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    Like other people who have answered, I'm somewhat baffled by this. This is not normal English - well, perhaps it is if we know we're talking about a car driving at a standard speed - but as sdgraham says, the only vehicle mentioned is an F-35. How far can it get in two hours? Nebraska? Alberta??
     
    Americans generally measure distance in terms car travel. It's not at all odd to us, but many people outside the US find this bizarre. No one would expect readers of an article to know what the travel time is by F-35.
     
    Yes of course a car journey time is the only thing that makes sense. But why would anyone say that in this situation? "If you're in Charleston and want to go and see the wreckage, it'll only take you two hours to drive there." - Isn't it much easier to say "It's a hundred miles away"?
     
    A sharp-eyed editor at The Associated Press ;) caught this one:
    NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — The crash site for a stealth fighter jet that went missing during the weekend after its pilot ejected was located Monday in rural South Carolina after the military asked the public for help finding an aircraft built to elude detection.

    The debris field was discovered in Williamsburg County, about 60 miles (96 km) northeast of Joint Base Charleston. Residents were being asked to avoid the area while a recovery team worked to secure it.
    Officials find debris from F-35 fighter jet that crashed in South Carolina after pilot ejected
    The editor's note:
    This story was first published Sept. 18, 2023. It was updated Sept. 19, 2023 to make clear that the distance between the recovery field and the base is about 60 miles (96 km), not two hours
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    That's how Americans communicate distances to each other. Walmart is 15 minutes from here and Grandma's house is 7 hours from here.
    If there's no highway, it might take three hours and a half hours to drive 100 miles. If it's highway all the way, it might only take an hour and a half. 100 miles doesn't tell you that much.

    and the base is about 60 miles (96 km), not two hours
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    Both things can be true.
     
    I think it was pretty stupid. As mentioned, the story is about a vehicle that flies and can cover well over 1000 miles in that time.

    Myridon said:
    If there's no highway, it might take three hours and a half hours to drive 100 miles. If it's highway all the way, it might only take an hour and a half. 100 miles doesn't tell you that much.
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    It's pretty irrelevant talking about how long it might take a car to drive there on various highways. The reader is not going to be driving there. The plane traveled "as the crow flies" and so miles is pertinent since highways are irrelevant and the straight line distance is what it would have covered. Time is irrelevant since the possible variation in speed is far more than a car. Knowing the distance allows you to roughly estimate the time for various scenarios - flying fast, flying slow, driving fast, driving slow, walking, whatever.
     
    The reporter wasn't talking about how far the plane flew in terms of the plane or how long the plane was in the air. They were telling the reader how far it is from the base to the debris site in terms the reader understands. You don't have to be going there to want to know how far away something is.
     
    Perhaps we can all accept that some Americans measure distance in driving time, some Americans measure distance in miles, while Brits just look on, puzzled. :D
    My reaction when I read the news story was that it meant flying time, which seemed an odd choice of distance units and a remarkably long way. I might be surprised the BBC didn't edit the story, but the editing of their online news leaves a lot to be desired.
     
    I think we're forgetting that this was a piece of sensitive military equipment and the authorities have a vested interest in not having sight-seers and souvenir hunters turning up in their droves at the crash site. The article was, I suspect, never intended to pinpoint the wreckage; merely to give a ballpark location - find North Charleston and then it's somewhere to the near-ish North East. Was it two hours' drive by car or two hours' flight by an unmanned fighter jet (which may well be designed to throttle back as soon as occupants have ejected, we just don't know)? Or even two hours on foot? It really doesn't much matter in this context.

    The OP sentence could have been written "The debris was discovered a short way (or "a bit" or "just" or "a smidgeon (probably BrE)" or "not too far") northeast of Joint Base Charleston in North Charleston." and still have been just as acceptable in terms of accuracy for consumption by the readership.
     
    Majorbloodnok said:
    I think we're forgetting that this was a piece of sensitive military equipment and the authorities have a vested interest in not having sight-seers and souvenir hunters turning up in their droves at the crash site. The article was, I suspect, never intended to pinpoint the wreckage; merely to give a ballpark location - find North Charleston and then it's somewhere to the near-ish North East. Was it two hours' drive by car or two hours' flight by an unmanned fighter jet (which may well be designed to throttle back as soon as occupants have ejected, we just don't know)? Or even two hours on foot? It really doesn't much matter in this context.

    The OP sentence could have been written "The debris was discovered a short way (or "a bit" or "just" or "a smidgeon (probably BrE)" or "not too far") northeast of Joint Base Charleston in North Charleston." and still have been just as acceptable in terms of accuracy for consumption by the readership.
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    I watched a news item on Youtube about this and the anchor said that the military was actually appealing for help with the search to local residents, so I'm no sure about your interpretation. Also, did you read the Myridon's respone?

    "Americans generally measure distance in terms car travel. It's not at all odd to us, but many people outside the US find this bizarre. No one would expect readers of an article to know what the travel time is by F-35."
     
    Majorbloodnok said:
    I think we're forgetting that this was a piece of sensitive military equipment and the authorities have a vested interest in not having sight-seers and souvenir hunters turning up in their droves at the crash site.
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    Did you miss the story when it was first reported? From the BBC report:
    The public had been asked to help find the jet.
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    From CNN:
    “How in the hell do you lose an F-35?” wondered Rep. Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican, in a post on social media Sunday that speaks for everyone who read the headline about the state-of-the-art military plane that went missing earlier in the day after its pilot ejected and parachuted to safety. ...

    “How is there not a tracking device and we’re asking the public to what, find a jet and turn it in?” she continued.
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    Andygc said:
    Did you miss the story when it was first reported?
    ...
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    StaticBounce said:
    I watched a news item on Youtube about this and the anchor said that the military was actually appealing for help with the search to local residents, so I'm no sure about your interpretation.
    ...
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    No, I read the story right enough. However, there's a big difference between the US military asking for information from members of the public who know something they don't and a paper giving information out to the general public. I wasn't interpreting; merely observing that precision in geographical accuracy was not only unnecessary but also in some ways undesirable.

    StaticBounce said:
    ...
    Also, did you read the Myridon's response?

    "Americans generally measure distance in terms car travel. It's not at all odd to us, but many people outside the US find this bizarre. No one would expect readers of an article to know what the travel time is by F-35."
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    I did indeed, but once again I wasn't contradicting this; I was just pointing out that "about 2 hours" is an elastic enough term that what it equates to in distance for the article's purposes is irrelevant. It's a bit like interpretation of some recipes when "a teaspoon of...." just means "some".
     
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