Likely Expectations

What To Expect From Your Craniotomy

Mary South | White Review | 1st January 2020

A craniotomy "can be a relaxing experience, rather than one of abject terror". You will be conscious for at least part of the operation, but feeling no pain because there are no pain receptors in the brain. Hallucinatations, synaesthesia and out-of-body experiences are often reported. "I’ve heard that it feels as though you are watching your own handwriting uncoiling from someone else’s pen" (4,800 words)

How Likely Is "Likely"?

Andrew Mauboussin & Michael Mauboussin | HBR | 2nd July 2018

If probability as such is hard enough to understand, degrees of it are impossible to communicate in ordinary speech. If you say "more often than not", most of your listeners will take you to mean "about 60% of the time". But if you call something a "serious possibility", this may be understood as anything from a 20% to an 80% likelihood. As for a "slam dunk", this may not be understood at all (1,700 words)