Reid’s Table*

Nonspecific measures are often used in articles and in speech to represent real quantities. Until the publication of Ried’s Table, you did not know how many people actually turned out when an article referred to “half a million rock fans” attended a concert, or how many experts a reporter consulted to conclude that “most authorities agree that writers should use more precise terminology.”

Although I found a paper copy of this table many years ago, I love it so much I’ve reproduced it here for your edification and enjoyment!

Table of Absolute Values
for Common American Phrases Denoting Nonspecific Quantities
Common Phrase	Absolute value(s)
One	1
Only one	1
A couple	2 to 4
A few	3 to 5
Quite a few	3 to 6
Some, several	3 to 9
Many	3 to 8
Most (e.g., “most authorities”)	4 to 6
Half a dozen	5 to 7
About a half dozen	4 to 8
A lot	6 to 10
Quite a lot	7 to 11
A whole lot	8 to 17
Ten**	9 to 11
Around ten	7 to 13
A dozen	11 to 13
About a dozen	9 to 15
A bunch	8 to 15
A whole bunch	9 to 19
Two dozen	22 to 26
About two dozen	21 to 27
A few hundred	75 to 125
A couple of hundred	99 to 139
Two or three hundred	140 to 175
Half a million (e.g., news reporter’s estimate of crowd size)	90,000 to 125,000
Most (when expressed as a percentage)	10% to 20%
A majority	50% + 1
A clear majority	51%
A vast majority	52% to 60%
An overwhelming majority	61% to 70%
Almost all / everyone	71% to 75%
Practically all / everyone	76% to 80%
All / everyone	81% to 86%
Absolutely all / everyone	86% to 90%
100% of those surveyed	91% to 95%
Street value: narcotics agent’s valuation	Divide by 100 to find actual value.

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*Don Ried, a technical writer, quantified the first values. Usually just called “Ried’s Table.”

**Applies to any round number, ranges from -10% to +10%, e.g., ‘ten people’ really means 9, 10 or 11.

This web page was last updated on September 30, 2003.


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