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So I recently ran into this when summarizing a legal disclosure for a publication I help write: I wanted to say the original author believed something could not be estimated (ie, the writer had no basis for estimating something). Without really thinking about it, I wrote "unestimable."
A co-worker said she thought it was "inestimable." My instinct told me that meant something different, and indeed the first dictionary I checked said it means
"immeasurable, incalculable, innumerable, unfathomable, indeterminable, measureless, countless, untold; limitless, boundless, unlimited, infinite, endless, inexhaustible; informal no end of; literary myriad."
All or most of which, I notice, have a colloquial sense of "big" or "many" or "a lot" -- not of simply being unquantifiable. Then there's "estimable," which seems to come from "esteem" rather that "estimate," since my dictionary shows it as "worthy of great respect."
I was writing to try to find a good alternative for future reference, if I want to say something can or can't be estimated. I think I may have found a close but imperfect approximation with "unquantifiable" (imperfect because I may be able to estimate a quantity even if I can't precisely quantify it), but does anyone have any insight on usage here? Am I being too picky? Or might be confuse people by using inestimable, or look stupid by using it or by attempting to coin unestimable. I suspect there's a stunningly obvious solution here that I'm overlooking.
Thanks,
tf
Hi TF, and welcome to the forum! You ask an interesting question.
Using unquantifiable would not be a bad choice. Your objection that unquantifiable doesn't really mean you "can't estimate it" puzzles me. I don't believe there's that many quantities that can't at least be estimated. Google "Fermi Questions" and you'll see where I'm coming from. And the Online Dictionary defines unquantifiable exactly the way you seem to want.
It would be interesting to know what quantity you're referring to. That might help us, perhaps, choose a better word.
If the quantity in question is truly not able to be estimated, then a better term might be uncertain or unknowable or incalculable.
Through a book given to me by a supervisor and a (partially) on-the-job class about business (clear) writing I learned to use short and well defined words. It was argued that long, complex (I avoided "complicated" here) words have too many definitions. Your blocked definition above for "inestimable" is an example of this. The book and class also said to get people into your writing. Even considering its flaws, MicroSoft WORD does flag passive sentences if it is properly set up.
So, I vote for your words: The writer had no basis for estimating something. Or, The original author believes no one can estimate it.
Both are active voice sentences that have people in them and use fewer or smaller words.
HTH
Emmett
I like indeterminable for this use. But I agree with Heimhenge that this would refer to the actual value, rather than an estimate, unless you specifically state the the estimate is indeterminable.
I also agree with Emmett entirely that the sentence can likely be rewritten to be clearer and simpler.
It is impossible to determine the value.
It is impossible to estimate the value.
It is impossible to determine a sound estimate.
I confess to a fondness for polysyllabic words, for various reasons: Sometimes I'm in a mood to show off, sometimes they fit the sound of a sentence better, and of course sometimes such a word has exactly the shade of meaning I'm looking for and nothing else does. When a word causes one to run to the dictionary and uniquely fits the intended meaning, what can be better? But in a case like this, where "inestimable" has another meaning, I gotta agree that recasting the sentence ("can you take back that two-dollar word and give me five or six two-bit words instead?") is usually better.
Really I chimed in only to add that "inestimable", to my ear, means not "unquantifiable" but "valuable" or "valued". If I'm not mistaken, Bilbo Baggins said in his eleventy-first-birthday speech "I want to say that eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among such worthy and inestimable hobbits".
Or come to think of it maybe he said "estimable".
It was "excellent and admirable". But that was pretty good from memory, Bob!
Here's the exact quote, plus a little more, since the next bit is so delicious:
First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all, and that eleventy-one years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. Tremendous outburst of approval.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. This was unexpected and rather difficult. There was some scattered clapping, but most of them were trying to work it out and see if it came to a compliment.
[Edited to make sure Tolkien's emphasis was preserved.]
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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