Although prefabrication has a long history - the ancient Romans shipped pre-cut stone columns, pediments, and other architectural elements to their colonies in North Africa, where the numbered parts were reassembled into temples - the idea took on a new impetus with the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution.
I was sent to a school because my father was already aware that his days were numbered, and he was anxious for me to acquire a good education and follow in his footsteps.
Our abode in this world is transitory, our life therein is but a loan, our breaths are numbered and our indolence is manifest.
The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And yes, there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human.
I never intended to be a professional writer; as the story developed, the one thing I had in my hopes was that this would be something tangible to separate me from the nameless, numbered masses.
I've worked on all sorts of things, like the sci-fi stuff for Vin Diesel, where the script is numbered and is in unphotocopy-able colours and your name is stamped into every page. And it doesn't really help because it creates a false sense of specialness about the thing.
Our friends in the group Chicago, they just numbered theirs and we thought that was kind of neat but it made continuity from album to album and that was our way of doing it.
I inherited this collection of vinyl records, which at that time numbered 6,000, and I've since continued to collect music. As you know, vinyl records can be very heavy, so every time I have to move into a new house, I need to build a complete new wall of shelves to put all these records, which is a nightmare for the architect.
When the cinematograph first made its appearance, we were told that the days of the ordinary theatre were numbered.
Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?