How do you mean?
The idea
When someone tells us they work out "occasionally," what does that mean? How often is "occasionally"? When I say I "often" take my daughter to the movies, just how frequently is that in your estimation?
These might seem like trivial linguistic questions with highly subjective answers, but if you’re an intelligence analyst, or a journalist, or a police officer — or really anyone who can get tripped up by imprecision — then the answer does matter.
Shared Meaning is an exercise in exposing these different interpretations. By assigning numbers to fuzzy words, we can see exactly where we align and where we diverge.
The CIA connection
Believe it or not, this is something that has been studied. Principally, by the CIA.
In the 1960s, Sherman Kent, the "father of intelligence analysis," discovered that analysts were using vague probability words in their reports, and policy-makers were interpreting them in wildly different ways.
"Analysts often use words like 'probably' or 'unlikely' — but readers interpret them very differently." Sherman Kent, CIA
Kent proposed a scale of "Estimative Probability" to help standardize these terms. While his specific percentages didn't always stick, the problem he identified remains: words mean different things to different people.
You can read Kent's original paper, "Words of Estimative Probability," at the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence.
Further reading
If you're interested in the linguistics and psychology of probability words, here are some additional resources:
The data
This app gathers data long-term to build an aggregate picture of how these definitions vary across a broad set of people. It’s used as an ice-breaker and conversation-starter for groups and teams to help them communicate more precisely.
All data is collected anonymously. We do not store IP addresses in a reversible format, and we do not track individual users across the web.