In his famous novel Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne informs us that the hero Phileas Fogg (said to have lived in London in 1872) was a stickler for certain things: "On this very 2nd of October he had dismissed James Forster, because that luckless youth had brought him shaving-water at eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit instead of eighty-six." Most of us would scarcely bother with such a trifle, but the fastidious Mr. Fogg was persistent in his style which was mostly overkill, and fortunate in being able to carry on in such a fashion. Most people, at least in this day and age, would settle for specifying that the water be "warm but not scalding," or something to that effect, leaving the precise temperature to the good judgement and understanding of the person listening.

Thus, the style of Mr. Fogg's specification was quantitative, demanding that a precise numerical...