I am a professional sign language interpreter, moving meaning between English and American Sign Language. Sometimes close enough is close enough, and sometimes close enough is worse than not at all. When meaning matters most, such as your desire to differentiate between 1x20 and 20x1, here is what I do:
Do not say “I estimate 5% odds of X happening” at all. Say either “I have about 1-in-20 confidence that all future timelines from this point contain X, and about 19-in-20 confidence that none do” or say “I estimate about 1-in-20 future timelines contain X, and 19-in-20 future timelines don’t” but do not say both and do not say nothing. Both of these choices use up more time to convey than the original sentence, but in an interpretation there will be other times that the target language will be more economical with time and over the course of an interpretation it can even out.
I agree with everything you say, as long as one assumption holds: the language(s) being used are static, in the domain of the topic being discussed. If the only available method to express 1x20 vs 20x1 is colloquial English or arcane math, then the method you describe seems to be ideal.
On the other paw, I’ve already gotten good use out of taking an existing language structure (the subset of Lojban sometimes called Cniglic, which can be bolted-on to English), and extending it for my own purpose. Since it worked so well before, I’m willing to try it again, if the next-best option is what you describe.
Or, looking at it another way, I’m drawing on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and am more interested in improving language as a tool of thought rather than a tool of communication.
I am a professional sign language interpreter, moving meaning between English and American Sign Language. Sometimes close enough is close enough, and sometimes close enough is worse than not at all. When meaning matters most, such as your desire to differentiate between 1x20 and 20x1, here is what I do:
Do not say “I estimate 5% odds of X happening” at all. Say either “I have about 1-in-20 confidence that all future timelines from this point contain X, and about 19-in-20 confidence that none do” or say “I estimate about 1-in-20 future timelines contain X, and 19-in-20 future timelines don’t” but do not say both and do not say nothing. Both of these choices use up more time to convey than the original sentence, but in an interpretation there will be other times that the target language will be more economical with time and over the course of an interpretation it can even out.
I agree with everything you say, as long as one assumption holds: the language(s) being used are static, in the domain of the topic being discussed. If the only available method to express 1x20 vs 20x1 is colloquial English or arcane math, then the method you describe seems to be ideal.
On the other paw, I’ve already gotten good use out of taking an existing language structure (the subset of Lojban sometimes called Cniglic, which can be bolted-on to English), and extending it for my own purpose. Since it worked so well before, I’m willing to try it again, if the next-best option is what you describe.
Or, looking at it another way, I’m drawing on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and am more interested in improving language as a tool of thought rather than a tool of communication.