when you are describing the length of a piece of wood, you could say, it is this long, while hands gestured the length. Or you could say, it is 3 feet, while gesturing the length at the same time. Is there a difference between two expressions? And if there's difference, is it significant?
The unit term makes a lot of difference, in my opinion. The difference is very much significant. "It is this long", only shows the talk is about length wise, but the size of the length was not knowable. "It is 3 feet", shows a unit term, and the amount of that unit; gesture becomes unnecessary. I mean, if there were another person besides who could not see the gesture. They could at least understand 3 feet more clearly than "this long".
They both described the same situation. They both have the same gestures. The words make the difference.
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