Table of Non-Specific Quantities

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

The following quote is from the y2ktimebomb site, Dick Mills "Powerful Prognostications" column, in an article called "A Real Life Nuclear Safety Related Y2K Incident" on March 5, 1999:

"This week's report from the Senate committee appears to use a different definition of local. That's one reason why I really hate the use of undefinable quantitative (adjectives) in public debate, such as local or many or most. Such words degrade the quality of debate because you can never be sure how the other person is defining the adjective. It's almost as bad as those infamous words "sex" and "is."

Good point. As a result. I offer the Forum the following Table of Absolute Values for Common American Phrases Denoting Non-Specific Quantities. This was originally credited to a technical writer named Don Ried, who quantified the first values. Enjoy!

One 1

Only One 1

A Couple 2 to 4

A few 3 to 5

Quite a few 3 to 6

Several 3 to 9

Many 3 to 8

Most (as is most authorities) 4 to 6

Half a dozen 5 to 7

A lot 6 to 10

Quite a lot 7 to 11

A whole lot 8 to 17

Ten 9 to 11

Around Ten 7 to 13

A dozen 11 to 13

About a dozen 9 to 15

A bunch 8 to 15

A whole bunch 9 to 19

Two dozen 22 to 26

About two dozen 21 to 27

A few hundred 75 to 125

A couple of hundred 99 to 139

Two or Three hundred 140 to 175

Half a million (as in crowd size) 90,000 to 125,000

Most (as used in a percentage) 10% to 20%

A majority 50% + 1

A clear majority 51%

A vast majority 52% to 60%

An overwhelming majority 61% to 70%

Almost all / everyone 71$ to 75%

Practically all / everyone 76% to 80%

All / everyone 81% to 85%

Absolutely all / everyone 86% to 90%

100% of those surveyed 91% to 95%

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), March 06, 1999

Answers

I LOVE IT! Armed with that knowledge I think I'm ready to start watching news on TV again. ;)

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 06, 1999.

Yeah, on www.news.com recently there was an article, headline Expert Says Y2K Won't Hit Telecomm or something like that. First paragraph, he says most telecom companies have completed equipment repairs. Second paragraph, you find out his definition of "most" is 36%.

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), March 06, 1999.

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