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In the following excerpt from Making Numbers Count, by Chip Heath and Karla Starr, the authors talk about different ways of expressing social distancing during covid-19 pandemic. Could you please help me understand the highlighted section:

Some of these are useful; others are just cute. You’ve seen a hockey stick or fishing rod before. But if you’ve ever witnessed 24 buffalo wings or 72 pistachios end-to-end, someone needs more training in table manners.

Does it mean "you should learn table manners" or "someone who has served you wings and/or pistachios in this way needs to learn table manners" or it refers to something else which I do not know.

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    Are they using 'length of a hockey stick' etc. as ways of estimating the distance between two people? If so, they mean that 'imagining a row of food items' isn't a very good way of estimating distance because no-one with good manners would lay items on the table in a row like that. Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 11:23
  • Primarily, it's a joke. Per the paragraph this is an example of not useful but rather "cute". The joke is that whoever laid out that many wings/pistachios in any real life setting was probably also messy and ill-mannered.
    – shawnt00
    Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 22:41

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These seem to be analogies that refer to the recommended distances of separation between people to reduce the risk of Covid cross-infection. The recommended distances were usually about six feet or two metres, depending on the detailed guidance at the time and in various places.

For those who are not accustomed to thinking in abstract concepts like metres or feet, advisors often sought analogies such as a hockey stick (a few feet or roughly a metre) or a fishing rod (usually several feet or a small number of metres). Here are just two examples:

Farm Progress
A good rule of thumb is that if you can reach out with a fishing rod and touch the person fishing next to you, you’re too close, according to a statement from Terry Steinwand, Game and Fish director.

Reuters
The City of Toronto posted signs in parks this week urging residents
to stay one hockey stick apart, evoking the country’s passion for the game. Some ice hockey aficionados took to social media to quibble with the comparison - stick lengths vary depending on the position one is playing, they argued.

The references to 24 buffalo wings (about 24 x 3 inches = 6 feet) or 72 pistachios (72 x one inch = 6 feet) are similar. But because 24 and 72 are large relative to 1 (fishing rod) or 2 (hockey sticks) the analogies lose simplicity and become almost absurd. Hence the writer goes on to be humorous, by inviting the reader to think literally of the sight of so many wings or pistachios on a table, leading to the idea that good table manners would not involve eating in that way and that whoever laid, or ate at, the table needs training in good manners.

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Within the realm of visual examples of how long the social distancing distance 'exactly' is, people have come up with some very specific analogies.

A fishing rod is a somewhat universally comprehensible example, but rows of specific foodstuffs can work as well - especially, I guess, in the context of restaurants and other eating establishments - even though having to lay them out would a bit unhygienic: if one were to have actually witnessed these examples first-hand, the person who had laid out these rows would need to learn better table manners.

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