Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 03:10:37 -0700, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
Would making it more explicit, say by restricting
the list to only the
top five hundred tall men rather than some specific height, be an
improvement?
Not really. 500 is an arbitrary number. We can fix it by including
only those identified by reliable secondary sources as being tall in
context. So a 6'1" Sumo would be in, but a 7' BB player probably not.
I suspected you'd say something like this and I still just don't
understand how it's supposed to be _less_ subjective or arbitrary. We'd
go from one arbitrary but consistent and objective criterion to a whole
collection of different arbitrary criteria selected from a random
assortment of magazines, websites, etc. IMO this approach would be much
better done as [[list of tall sumo]], [[list of tall basketball
players]], etc. - that way each individual list would resolve down to
just two criteria, profession and height, both of which are pretty easy
to judge. The original [[list of tall men]] would remain profession-neutral.
But since I'm not doing any of the work, c'est la vie.