It seems to me that the way we talk about possibilities in English has a component of downside risk that isn’t well captured by that ranking, especially at the extremes. I might comfortably refer to a 15% chance of losing twenty dollars as “remote”, but the same certainly wouldn’t be true of a 15% chance of losing my life.
It seems to me that the way we talk about possibilities in English has a component of downside risk that isn’t well captured by that ranking, especially at the extremes. I might comfortably refer to a 15% chance of losing twenty dollars as “remote”, but the same certainly wouldn’t be true of a 15% chance of losing my life.