nines

nines
 n.— «What level of reliability do you want to design into the satellite, and verify via ground testing? 99%? Or three nines? Or four?» —“Re: German conference highlights doubts about ESA’s manned space plans” by Kieran A. Carroll Usenet: sci.space Mar. 12, 1991. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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Further reading

Hair On Your Back Teeth

Susan from Virginia Beach, Virginia, shares the phrase her mother used when the kids refused to eat: It’ll grow hair on your back teeth. This supposed motivator likely blends two older traditions: a German idiom, Haare auf den Zähnen haben...

German Rhyming Regrets

In English, we may express regret colloquially with the rhyming phrase Shoulda, woulda, coulda! German speakers also use a rhyming phrase to suggest the same idea: Hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette!, which translates literally as “If only, if only, bicycle...