BEACHCOMBER
107 YEARS OLD AND STILL PRECISE ABOUT IMPRECISION...
HAVING a high regard for precision in both language and mathematics, I was struck by two cases recently that demand a recount.
The first report came from Australian police concerning a knife attack in Sydney in which the number of people being treated in hospital was “more than several” – a precisely imprecise expression – and so I wondered how many “more than several” is. Is it more or less than “not many”? And how does it compare with “quite a lot”?
While pondering, I heard RAF pilots had shot down “a number of” Iranian missiles heading for Israel. Of course it was “a number”, but apart from the fact the word “missiles” was in the plural, the report seemed to me to tell us nothing about that number except that it was at least two.
I put these questions to Sir Hardleigh Numerate, the Minister for Numerical Inexactitude. His response was impressively imprecise.
“I cannot speak for the Australians, but in this country the phrase ‘more than several’ is more than ‘several’ and less than ‘many’ but is generally greater than ‘not very many’. And ‘several’ is, of course, more than ‘a few’, though ‘lots of’ is more than any of the aforementioned.”
I asked him to be more precise and he told me “a few” is more than “two or three”, which generally means four or five, and “several” can mean anything from four to six. He surprised me with his precision.
Then I asked him how many “a number” referred to. “Five,” he said, firmly. “Are you saying that the RAF intercepted exactly five Iranian missiles?” I asked. “No,” he said. “I am definitely not saying that. Though they may have. The precise number is a state secret, but in general ‘a number of’ means five.” “You are curiously exact on that,” I replied, “though your previous replies were rather vague.”
“The phrase ‘a number’ must be compared,” he said, “with ‘a small number’ which means three or four, and ‘a large number’, which varies according to context but is always six or greater. ‘A number’ is thus exactly five.”
“I begin to understand,” I said gratefully. “But tell me, will I wait longer if someone tells me they’ll be with me ‘in a moment’ or when they say ‘in a minute’ or ‘in a jiffy’?”
“Not my business,” Sir Hardleigh replied. “You need the Department of Temporal Inexactitude for those.”