[Dragaera] Vlad's Age Revisited

[Kenneth Gorelick]

On Jul 12, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Howard Brazee wrote:

> 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.

For a child you report major percents of your life: 21/4, 3 1/2...then 10..11..12..after 21 you think in 1/2 decades, after 40 in decades. Then as you age you report in terms of your remaining life expectancy. So by 95 then I DO expect reports in1/2 years, and by 100 in 1/4 years!


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