Hello, I am new to this list and hope that anyone can help me solve an urgent problem.
The Dutch company I work for wants to use a fixed set of adjectives in its English financial reports to indicate, in a "clinical" fashion, the magnitude of an increase or decrease in profits (for example in quarterly reports and forecasts). The currently proposed set consists of the words slight (for an increase or decrease of less than 5%), clear (about 5-10%), substantial (10-25%), considerable (25-45%) and significant (more than 45%). Does this ranking make any sense? Is there any agreement at all in the English-speaking financial community about the ranking of these adjectives? Are there any better words to express these percentage ranges? Henk
