@ Germaine 07:09 Jul 17, 2018
I don't quite see why you are acting so suprised at my 2 comment: "really rather obvious" refers to the fact that the logical way of expressing the distance between 2 cylindrical objects would be to measure from the closest points on their circumference — more practical, for example, than measuring between thier (abstract) centre-lines. With the further refinment as kindly pointed out by Robin that they might not lie in the same horizontal plane, so measuring between the vertical tangents produces a different result from measuring on the diagonal between their nearest points. Your own suggestion, however, 'at the base of', is indeed a "highly unwelcome ambiguity" — in normal EN, that would be interpreted as 'at the lowest point of, which in the case of 2 cylindrical objects would be at the lowest point on their circumference, vertically benath the centre-line; this would of course yield a quite different, erroneous measurement! Whether or not you happen to have come across the expression I suggest, the fact is that is is a typical standard expression used in lots of fields, and correctly mirrors the exact technical meaning of the phrase used in FR — though no doubt equally rare! |