Chance of Rain

I once had a professor who felt obligated to critique my work - not in order to help me nor because it was needed - but because posturing was necessary, or at least this person felt the need for posturing. They noticed that I wrote the phrase "degree of probability" in one of my papers. The critique this person wrote in the margin of my paper was "something is either probable or it is not." I was terribly confused, since I was certain that this person had read at least once about the likelihood of rain falling in their front yard: 80%. Perhaps they had even taken an introductory logic course where they learned about some one form of reasoning: induction. I thought at the time that this person simply meant something grammatical, or perhaps there was some semantic debate about which I was ignorant. The word is used to mean that there is a strong possibility that something will take place, but the phrase was "degree of probability." I knew that I would not be able to communicate with this disappointed academic meaningfully.

But you, you understand. I know it.