If you wish to be most accurate, as your argument suggests, then you need to use the smallest unit of something. By your examples you would still say, having £1.01, that you have mere pounds. This situation is even further from your desired acquisition of Kumkuat Weekly than the £1.99 situation. However, saying you have “mere pennies” would correctly suggest that you are unable to complete the purchase as you lack the required minimum plurality of pounds, however at the same time suggesting that you are somewhat more strapped than is really the case.

The very basis of S.O.D.D.O.M is to express the time remaining in the largest possible, and therefore least precise, unit. The argument you propose above supports only the fundamentally flawed expansionist position.

Your argument only damages your position, and as such your opinion must be entirely discounted.

With kindest regards,
Strych (Ms)

By your logic we would be saying 1 mere week and 1 mere day.

Similarly, by your logic of “rounding up” you’re saying that by having a £1.01 and saying “I have a pound” that you are correct, when clearly this is wrong. You don’t have a pound. You have a pound and one pence. If you wanted to buy the latest issue of Kumkuat Weekly and it was £2.00 and you only had £1.99 – guess what – you don’t have enough! No amount of “rounding” will help.

Why would you ever want to “round off” something like mere anyway? Why not express it in the most exact form possible? S.O.D.D.O.M is precise, it’s clear cut and it makes more sense.

Naturalist and Expansion are just plain wrong.