From Here to There
Temporal and Physical Bounding
Yesterday, I heard a talk-show host thrice state that President Trump was offering a severance package to federal employees that paid their salaries and benefits UNTIL September of this year.
When I heard this, I suspected that the “until” was incorrect as I had heard a similar message the previous day that seemed different. However, my memory was foggy and I did not pounce on why, if incorrect, the host was not corrected by his co-host and audience.
An hour later, I read the report from NBC News stating that President Trump was offering a severance package to federal employees that paid their salaries and benefits THROUGH September of this year.
I have heard no comments regarding these two widely disparate versions of the story. Why?
I blame the absence of clarification on the fact that very few people noticed the inconsistency. And many conflate through with until in such bounding statements (as I call them).
And for those who are adequately discriminating, many merely shrug off the inconsistency as unimportant. Perhaps paying a few extra $Million in payroll is not important to the citizenry, but this is the effect of misunderstanding the cutoff by 30 days.
Assuming NBC News to be correct (not a safe assumption), the radio-show host could align his statement by changing his report in several ways:
Replace his until September with through September.
State that the package offered was to pay until October.
State that the pay would end at midnight on September 30.
Another example: “I was sick last week from Monday until Friday.”
Most people will assume from this statement that I was sick on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. But this is not what I said.
From Monday until Friday includes a set of only three days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Therefore, I was not sick on Monday or Friday.
Only by stating, “I was sick Monday through Friday” do I capture all five days. What a difference one word makes!
What’s worse is a confusing combination of inclusion and bounding as in, “I was sick from Monday through Friday.” The from bounds or excludes Monday from the set while the through includes Friday in the set. This set now includes four days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Between… and
Recently, I edited a line of text wherein the author wrote:
The big daddy of death was Birkenau—which operated between October 1941 to January 26, 1945.
I’m not certain if replacing to with and accurately expresses the author’s intended bounding, but it pairs properly with between.
To keep with the between… and pairing, we conclude that Birkenau was not operating in October of 1941 or on January 26, 1945. However, by replacing the between… and with through or with the use of a hyphen (i.e., October 1941 - January 26, 1945) we can be inclusive with the end dates.
This is crudely simple stuff, but such bounding statements are commonly misconveyed—both issued and received—by many people… perhaps a majority... perhaps a large majority.
When I was in school, I was eternally edgy regarding the due dates for assignments. With my phonics limitations affecting my interpretation of instructions, I was intensely attentive to the instructor’s language. If he demanded submission of an essay, for example, “ON [the following] Monday,” I was fairly confident that I was within his requirements to submit the essay at class on that day (Monday).
However, I would remain after class to pin down the instructor if he said, “the essay is due BY Monday.”
By means before (widely overlooked). And to be precise, the deadline would be midnight of that Sunday just before the Monday.
This had to be clarified, although I’m sure that the instructor had no idea the confusion he had wrought as other students never raised the issue. And although it might have been safe for me to assume (as did all the other students) that his by was intended to mean on, I could not allow for this.
And such bounding expressions affect physical location as well. They also serve critically in mathematical expression as in:
<
>
≤
≥
≠
=
If I say that I traveled from Orlando to Houston, it is precise to acknowledge that my travels did not include either city—only that I went from the city limits of one to that of the other.
Of course, it is dangerous to assume that my listener will conclude the exactness of my statement. If, for some reason it is important to be exact about this, I had better point out the details of the bounding. I had better nail it down in such a way as no other interpretation is possible and make my listener repeat it back to me.
[Nautilus founder, Arthur Jones, was fanatical about such statements when giving instructions. He could not allow any chance for misinterpretation.]
There are many situations for potential miscommunications regarding time and place. As mentioned in other articles, there are subtle differences between words for morning:
sunup
sunrise
daybreak
first light
dawn
crack of dawn, etc.
And most people assume that a weekend begins on and includes Friday while the actual ends of the week are only Saturday and Sunday.
[Note that Mother Jones, in the article, When Did the US Start Calling Itself “America” Anyway? makes the common bounding mistake in stating, “The Americas stretch from Canada to South America’s southern cone.” This language technically excludes Canada and South America’s southern cone from the Americas. During my life, I have made similar mistakes many times.]
Sometimes, it’s amazing that we can communicate at all.