Tom writes:

> Earlier in this thread, Wirt wrote:
>
>  > > Because this window for this failure is so tiny, [...]
>  > > the possibility of even this condition to the point of
>  > > being very highly improbable (virtually impossible).
>
>  FWIW, "virtually" is one of my favorite "marketing words" -- I've seen this
>  used "virtually" everywhere for "virtually" everything, and every time I
see
>  it, I replace "virtually" with it's meaning ("not really") and re-reading
it:

The only problem with doing this is that you greatly distort reality in the
process. While people do obviously use "nearly certain," "probable,"
"likely," "possible," and "nearly impossible" in everyday conversation to
relate their perceptions of the probability of specific events, these
estimates are obviously only broad strokes.

However, in most things mechanical, you can calculate the probabilities of
certain events occurring with a high degree of fidelity. There was no
"marketing" in my assessment that something was "virtually impossible." If
you want to change a probability of 1 in a billion chance that an event will
occur to being "not really impossible" (which is clearly literally true),
then you will also have to take responsibility for the significant
misimpression that that statement will leave with your listeners.

Wirt Atmar

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