[Dragaera] Vlad's Age Revisited

[Howard Brazee]

On 7/12/2010 10:08 AM, Scott Schultz wrote:
> What I was suggesting (which, I grant you, may just be a reflection of my
> own brain's workings) is that a person making this kind of statement would
> generally pick the closest applicable fraction. That is, if Vlad was 31 he
> would say "Almost two-thirds of the time I've been alive" rather than "More
> than half of the time I've been alive". The latter suggests to me that his
> own age is closer to forty than thirty.
>
> In the end, it's properly imprecise and the specific meaning, if any, is
> mostly reliant on how Steve would approach the usage of that kind of
> phrasing.
>    
Unless one does so for humorous effect (with a child), people don't say 
"I am 95 years old - and a half".

I agree with your logic.