Having seen this come up a few times, i'd like to spend some time defining a bunch of arbitrary measurements:
starting from the singular:
- one
- couple
- few
- some
- handful
- bunch
- group
- several
- lot
- mess
- pile
- ton
- metric ton
- crapload
- assload
- sh!tload
- f#ckload*
Note, the -load suffixed groupings can be magnified by factors of ten by using the following prefixes:
- holy
- mother
- gi-normous
- f#cking*
Note that these prefixes can be applied in a non repetitive manner to further emphasize the magnitude of the grouping. (* at this level, any appropriate swear based conjunctive is equally valid and may be assumed to be "a surprisingly large amount.")
Allow me to provide some examples with translations:
| Term | translation |
|---|---|
| i would like a few apples. | Please provide three apples. |
| i've got a crapload of zip-ties | Fry's mislabled the zip ties again and i've got 20 bags of 500 ties i picked up for $40. |
| What you're asking for will require several weeks of work | Looks like i'm not going to be sleeping this month. |
| Dude! Have you seen the error log? There's a holy mother f#cking gi-normous f#ckload of errors in there all coming from your module! | i need to hurt you. Badly. Please stand still as i beat you with your severed leg. |
We hope that this has aided your sense of abstract and arbitrary measurement.
Yeah, I think you need to define "metric" as a prefix, usable with any of the other noun-based terms (usually modifying to about 1.6x the original)
We once defined metric f*ckton as being equivalent to the amount of coins Scrooge McDuck had such that he could dive into them, in his tower of coins in Ducktails.
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I enjoy combining quantitative measurements with the qualitative ones. Why talk about "a metric ass-ton of Lego minifigs" when people will take you much more seriously when you talk about "approximately 3.45 metric ass-tons of Lego minifigs"?