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The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

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Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#511

Post by Daneel_ »

retsibsi wrote: post #442
aspenmayer wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? > Well, I suppose they could, but then what if they meant Thursday? > “Friday week” is surprisingly unambiguous. It always means “count forward from today until a Friday, then add a week”. Its partner is “Friday coming”, which is “count forward until a Friday”. That’s good that it’s unambiguous to you, as you hap…

I think this discussion of "Friday week" has people talking at cross purposes, and there may not be any real disagreement. It's an idiom, and if you're part of a (sub-)culture that has this idiom, its meaning is unambiguous. But if it's unfamiliar to you, you can't be expected to deduce its meaning from first principles. Someone upthread mentioned "half ten", which is similar: if you're familiar with the idiom, you k…

Interestingly, in the languages where do you say "half ten", it unambiguously means 9:30 not 10:30. For example, in German you would say halb zehn (or "half ten" / "half to ten"), which means 9:30.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#512

Post by Daneel_ »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #449
Daneel_ wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't forget: several = 5-10 handful = 10-20 Personally, after having worked in a hardware store, I always confirm. "grab me a couple of those please" - "is two enough, or do you need a few extra?" I'm one of those people for whom a couple is 3-5, but never 2. I would just say "two".

> a couple is 3-5, but never 2 For me it depends on the formality. For example, a married couple is never more than two people.

Ahh, that's different than referring to a count of things though - you can't hand a couple of married people to someone, for example. But "Hand me a couple of screws, would you?" - I'd pass them 3-4 screws, not 2.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#513

Post by aitchnyu »

_el1s7 wrote: post #492

And you're charging $3 to export some dots on top of an image from a basic app that probably takes like 1 hour to make... Ugh, so lame.

I thought it was an AI object counting app, the kind that made headlines 8 years back. Nope, completely manual.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xz.camera.obje...

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#514

Post by Daneel_ »

867-5309 wrote: post #454
Daneel_ wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't forget: several = 5-10 handful = 10-20 Personally, after having worked in a hardware store, I always confirm. "grab me a couple of those please" - "is two enough, or do you need a few extra?" I'm one of those people for whom a couple is 3-5, but never 2. I would just say "two".

a couple is always two. anything more is several, up to half a dozen

So if I said "hand me a couple of screws, would you?" - you'd give me exactly 2? If you know you want an exact number I would always use the exact number. I'd never say "give me a dozen screws", I'd just say "give me 12 screws". Named quantities are almost always a range rather than a definitive number as far as I'm concerned.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#515

Post by jmkni »

spiralcoaster wrote: post #339
SilasX wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separate comment so you can separately downvote/flag me: Why , OP, why ? How much self-awareness does it really take to realize JBR is a non-standard acronym people won't recognize? It almost feels like a superpower that I take an extra half-second to think about what jargon the average person needs to have defined.

Reading the OP, it appears they were pretty much blurting out a semi-nonsensical stream of consciousness. That's my best guess as to why they didn't bother to define JBR, because in reality, they weren't writing for any other audience other than themselves.

That sums it up nicely lol

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#516

Post by smcl »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #349
achierius wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds more like "a couple". Personally I think "a few" would be anywhere from 3-9, which is more reasonable, if still handily above the median national income (like 250k a year if you save and invest well).

Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...

"this Friday" vs "next Friday" should be unambiguous except some people abuse "next Friday" and cause problems.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#517

Post by RajT88 »

tobinfekkes wrote: post #366
_carbyau_ wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...

My wife and I just discovered that we have different beliefs about "this Friday" vs. "Next Friday". I never even knew there was another possibility, so it's cool to see this mentioned here so soon after.

My wife and I have a disagreement about "the other day".

I use it to mean, a time up to two years ago. She uses it to mean up to no more than a month.

I think the disagreement is because I have a better memory - two years ago does not feel so distant to me. It is a silly and fun thing to argue about, leading to some agreements on terminology:

A while ago - 2- 10 years

Back in the day - 10+ years ago

And just to troll her, I boldly make the claim, "just now" means any time between now and a week ago.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#518

Post by frereubu »

antod wrote: post #419
nerdile wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native US English speaker here, and this is the first time I have ever heard of this. TIL

Reasonably commonly used in Commonwealth countries. Next Friday is sometimes too ambiguous, you can never be sure you share the same definition with the other person. Is it the same as This Friday (the very next occurring Friday), or Friday Week (ie next week's Friday).

I always thought of "Friday week" as "Friday plus a week" rather than "next week's Friday".

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#519

Post by rkaid »

barbs wrote: post #440
jamwil wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several is the gap

Took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that "several" didn't mean "about seven"

There was a contestant on a recent season of Survivor who, iirc, gave up on a challenge because the host said it would take "several hours" to finish. Later the contestant explained that "last I checked several means seven", and about an hour into the challenge he realized he wouldn't last for seven hours, so he quit.. (When the host said "several hours" I believe he meant about 4 hours)

This of course led to much ridicule and many memes in the fandom, and Survivor even titled the seventh episode of that season "Episode Several". In post-season interviews the contestant is still adamant that several means seven.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#520

Post by Zobat »

RajT88 wrote: post #517
tobinfekkes wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I just discovered that we have different beliefs about "this Friday" vs. "Next Friday". I never even knew there was another possibility, so it's cool to see this mentioned here so soon after.

My wife and I have a disagreement about "the other day". I use it to mean, a time up to two years ago. She uses it to mean up to no more than a month. I think the disagreement is because I have a better memory - two years ago does not feel so distant to me. It is a silly and fun thing to argue about, leading to some agreements on terminology: A while ago - 2- 10 years Back in the day - 10+ years ago And just to troll…

I'd claim that the time ranges for these depend on what we're talking about.

"I had a sandwich a while ago" is wastly different from "they had a child a while ago".

"The other day" and "back in the day" might not differ as much but still...

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