From the letters page in last week's issue of "The Economist":

Can you please define some of your quantitative terms? How big is a “raft” (“Gerhard Schröder's last chance”, February 8th) and how many of them are there in a “swathe” (“Give a dog a bad name”, February 22nd)? How many “tads” (“A last, last chance”, March 8th) make a “slew” (“A (going) private matter”, March 22nd)?

And from Quinion (http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/startrek.htm):

A major difference at this prototype stage is that the fictional device is hand-held, whilst the real one takes up a space “the size of a kitchen table” according to reports (it seems that “kitchen table” has now become a standard unit of measurement).


Bingley

Bingley