This is more of an English usage question than contruction, but I expect only someone in the trades would know:
The fiction author Lee Childs (of Jack Reacher fame) often refers to a piece of plywood in his writing as “8 x 4” instead of what I have only ever heard: “4 x 8”. Can anyone tell me where the term 8 x 4 comes from, or is it that Childs is more or a writer than a builder?
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Replies
This might be a UK/US thing. In the US I've mainly heard/read "4 x 8", but I have read "8 x 4" occasionally, and it may have been from UK sources. (Yes, I know they mainly use metric in the UK, but I gather that some imperial nomenclature has survived in the building industry.)
Grain
4x8 has the grain in the 8' dimension. 8x4 has the grain in the 4' dimension.