Duc

“Some of these terms had startlingly wide ranges, which I imagine you experienced in your four-person survey. For instance, “real possibility” had a range of about 20% to 80%. A quarter of the people taking the survey thought the term meant 40% of the time or less. A quarter thought it meant 40% to 60%. A quarter thought it meant 60% to 75%. Finally, a quarter thought it meant over 75% of the time.”
― Annie Duke, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices

“If you’re like most people, you were pretty surprised by these results. Most of us aren’t aware of the wide range of what these words mean to different people. We assume that when we use a term, other people use it in the same way we do and mean the same thing we do.”
― Annie Duke, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices

“Precision uncovers disagreement. It uncovers places where your belief is different from someone else’s belief. And that’s good, because you want to find out when you have something wrong. It gives you the chance to get it right. Think about it like this: Saying “2 + 2 is a small number” will help you get better at math, but it won’t help you become an expert. “A small number” is technically correct, but it is much more helpful for your teacher to find out if you think the answer is 5, or 2, or 4, which are all small numbers. It’s true that the less precise answer makes it harder to be wrong, but you want to find out when you have the wrong answer if you are going to get better at math.”
― Annie Duke, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices

“Andrew Mauboussin and Michael Mauboussin came up with this pretty comprehensive list of these types of terms for a survey they conducted: Almost always More often than not Serious possibility Almost certainly Never Slam dunk Always Not often Unlikely Certainly Often Usually Frequently Possibly With high probability Likely Probably With low probability Maybe Rarely With moderate probability Might happen Real possibility”
― Annie Duke, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices