Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Is there a term/phrase that covers vague comparisons?



Take the phrase "X Corp has a turnover greater than some small countries".
A pedant will want to know the criteria for "small" country, are they developing or industrialised countries, what's the GDP . . . and many other such questions which will actually make the comparison less vague and more useful.



Look at this "Monster" XKCD cartoon that plays with this idea



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Do these vague "I'm giving you an impression here but no useful data" comparisons have a name?


Answer



A non-rigorous comparison is sometimes called a casual comparison (related to definitions like: not formal; relaxed in style or manner).



But your examples would also be an analogy (a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based).



Or perhaps a mataphor (a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance).


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