I love/hate language (Off-Topic)

by naturl selexion, Tuesday, May 12, 2015, 02:51 (3490 days ago) @ iconicbanana

we usually gave an error of one order of magnitude as acceptable for a correct answer with extremely large numbers,

The article stated "about 1.1%" or about 1/100. That is very close to two orders of magnitude and very far away from three orders of magnitude. I believe you when you say that an error of one magnitude is acceptable for extremely large numbers. This was not an extremely large number though.

The point is that "several" is fairly well understood to mean some value more than two. If you had said "couple", even though some people may assign a value other than two to it, I would have no argument. It fits just fine with the actual information. "Several" does not fit, hence my comment.