Does "20-25000" mean "20000-25000"?

NO, it means 20 to 25,000 (23,000).

Otherwise, it should have been written 20,000-25,000.

as written speech, it could.

ie. "i was making between twenty and twenty-five thousand a year" is understood to mean $20,000-$25,000...

True; the "understanding" is easily interpreted, because most would know it's not "$20 to $25,000/year."

It's just a shortened and, as seen above, possibly confusing way to write a range of numbers.

20-25,000 means twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand meaning 20,000 at a minimum and 25,000 for the maximum.


Would it be better to use the whole numbers? Yes.

"There were 20,000 to 25,000 people watching the parade"
meaning AT LEAST twenty thousand and AT MOST twenty five thousand people.

I think I just figured out what C.I. was saying. The writer, instead of using the 20-25,000 range could have just said :

"There are about 23,000 whatevers..... ."

That implies a range as well but isn't as specific and wouldn't have worked in the above piece that Oristar quoted.

Joe(doing thing by the numbers since 1947)Nation

It's poorly written, I think. I see you disagree with c.i.

To me, the way is written, it could be either, but I tend towards c.i. view, the more literal view.

Maybe some prior knowledge of gene theory would lead the reader to assume it means 20,000-25,000 but that's not what it says.

Here's the phrase:
"Corals ... have as many genes as human (20-25000 genes in corals
compared to human 20-23,000) and .."

So, corals have between twenty thousand and twenty five thousand genes and humans have between twenty thousand and twenty THREE thousand genes.

It says what it says; you don't think there is someone out there who would read it and think "Amazing, some humans have only 20 genes." .


Joe(Look, Margaret, your mother has only twenty two genes!)Nation

That's my opinion; without understanding the topic under discussion, how many would read it correctly?

I think that's the point, CI, here's the paragraph:


Is it really your opinion that a person, able to read at the level of the rest of the paragraph which I would put at about a senior high school level, would mistakenly think that either corals or humans could exist with only twenty genes? Maybe, but I would piss and moan at any editor who would make me write :
Corals, though very simple animals, have as many genes as human (20,000 to 25000 genes in corals
compared to humans, 20,000 to 23,000) and many of the molecules in the nervous systems are similar to higher animals.

There. It's fixed.

Joe( )Nation

Yup, it's agreed then. Scientists, just like mathematicians and doctors, don't like to writing things out because it's expected to be understood, by the perspective community at least.
Journalists do a worse job, because it is their job to clear any confusion and convey the message clearly to the commoners. Yet sometimes it seems that they create more confusion than they intend.

In your own mind, it's "fixed." It's still confusing to many of us "ignorant" souls who are not familiar with "molecular science."

You've met my mother-in-law?