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Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "They rounded down to 182.8 instead of rounding up to 182.9 because 182.9 might make the statement incorrect."

The cited statement is clearly a violation of the Maxim of Quantity. But I don't think I've ever seen a discussion of the pragmatic inference from over-exact numbers to conversion of units, or even a discussion of the problems for cross-cultural translation — though the issue certainly arises frequently.

For example, should we explain to our European colleagues that the U.S. chain Five Below sells only items priced below €4.31 (as of the current rate of exchange)? Presumably that's a case where exact currency conversion is inappropriate.

May 21, 2026 @ 8:45 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics

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