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mint @mintexists4/18/2023, 11:05 PM

barabinson @barabinson

bcj @bcj4/18/2023, 10:45 PM

what's the highest-ratio idiom?

1/1: A penny saved is a penny earned
1/2: A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush
1/9: A stitch in time saves nine
1/16: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
1/240: In for a penny, in for a pound (thanks @vogon for pointing out this would have been coined¹ pre-decimalization)
1/1000: A picture is worth 1000 words (thanks @NireBryce)
1/63360: Give them an inch, they take a mile (thanks @RoyalAssassin)
1/1000000: One in a million (thanks @jay)

Can we go higher?

In looking up "in for a penny, in for a pound", I saw there's a variant "in for an inch, in for a mile" which would get us to 1/63360 but I've also never actually heard it said

further edit: probably need to exclude obviously-large but not fixed/specified quantities as several people have pointed out good ones in the comments

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in reply to @bcj's post:

Aaron Patterson @tenderlove4/18/2023, 10:47 PM

I feel very dumb right now because I always thought "pound" was referring to weight and didn't understand how that idiom could make any sense.

bcj @bcj4/18/2023, 10:49 PM

I did second-guess myself when I typed that because "what if it is weight"

colin @vogon4/18/2023, 10:51 PM

fun fact: the full name of the pound is the "pound sterling" because originally a pound represented the value of a Roman pound¹ of sterling silver

about 11.6 imperial ounces, or 328 grams

bcj @bcj4/18/2023, 10:53 PM

ohh, that makes sense

colin @vogon4/18/2023, 10:48 PM

"in for a penny, in for a pound" predates decimalization (cf. "if you go in" from gilbert and sullivan's iolanthe) so technically that's a 1/240 ratio that was cut drastically in the '70s

bcj @bcj4/18/2023, 10:50 PM

ooh, good catch

colin @vogon4/18/2023, 10:55 PM

I'm just glad my worrisome level of knowledge of the books of gilbert and sullivan shows has come in handy for something honestly

Nire Bryce @NireBryce4/18/2023, 10:52 PM

1:1000 picture:word ratio

liffy 💜@lifning4/18/2023, 11:09 PM

"it's you and me against the world" 2 / $global_population

bcj @bcj4/18/2023, 11:11 PM

2 of us and 1 world. we've got this

Aria Winningson @TheWeightOfUwU4/18/2023, 11:09 PM

"You've seen one, you've seen them all" has a theoretically infinite ratio, depending on how many of the thing you're talking about there are.

@secrets4/18/2023, 11:16 PM

damn i think we have a winner

bcj @bcj4/18/2023, 11:19 PM

yeah, had to add a qualifier to the original post because this one literally destroyed the competition

@secrets4/18/2023, 11:15 PM

Neither are quite standard measurements but a #4 sewing needle (so about medium-largish, suitable for rough patchwork in the field where it might get dropped easily) is approximately a cylinder 1/32" dia x 1 3/4", while the most common haybale measurement I could find is 50"dx72", ergo by volume one needle/haystack is roughly 1/105344016

@lexi4/18/2023, 11:21 PM

(not) 1/3: Two wrongs don't make a right!

@lexi4/18/2023, 11:25 PM

also once in a blue moon should be pretty rare

bcj @bcj4/18/2023, 11:28 PM

rarer than i thought. i thought we got ~1/year but it's closer to every 2 or 3 so I guess like ~1/1000

Jeran @Jeran4/18/2023, 11:32 PM

what's the ratio for "you miss 100% of the shots you never take?"

Lichenthrope @SkeletonsDotCom4/19/2023, 12:33 AM

1 shot not taken : 1 shot missed (as a rule 100% is always 1:1)

Nire Bryce @NireBryce4/18/2023, 11:41 PM

so it's not REALLY an idiom so it's just an honorary mention, but more stars in the sky than grains of sand on earth.

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/lifestyle/2019/02/05/more-stars-than-grains-of-sand-on-earth-you-bet/60474645007/ isn't a great source, but they're idioms so I figure it's fine.

sand: 7.5 sextillion, or 7.5x10^21

stars: "70 septillion", or 7x10^25

or a ratio of 1:69_992_500_000_000_000_000_000_000

mint @mintexists4/19/2023, 12:42 AM

Billion To One odds?

@npaige4/19/2023, 2:31 AM

"needle in a haystack": a sewing needle ranges from 0.5-1mm in diameter, and is about 50mm long, so has a volume of roughly 3mm^3. A haystack must include at least two bales of hay. A 'two-string' hay bale, which seems to be one of the smaller kinds of hay bale, is 14x18x35", or about 1.5x10^8 mm^3, so two of them encompass about 3x10^8 mm^3. Thus we have a ratio of, at a bare minimum, 1:100,000,000 (or larger, if you have a more impressive haystack)

@npaige4/19/2023, 2:33 AM

oops I should actually read the other comments

@Sententiola4/24/2023, 9:38 AM

In the same (disqualified) vein as 'if you've seen one, you've seen them all', there's an old-fashioned legal Latin phrase 'scintilla temporis', which is used to describe an infinitely small unit of time between one thing happening and another thing happening. It's a legal fiction that's used when, in order to make a legal transaction or effect work properly, it's essential for two things to be non-simultaneous but also for there to be no meaningful gap between them. 'Scintilla' literally means a spark but in this context it means the briefest moment that could possibly be; 'temporis' means 'of time', and time is (arguably) infinite in at least one direction. So a 'scintilla temporis' is an infinitely small fraction of an infinitely large quantity.

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