1951年朝鲜战争期间，29旅被命令守住一座山丘，但很快出现兵力、弹药和士气都不足的局面，英国旅长告诉美国盟友情况“有点棘手”，这在英军术语里意味着接近危险临界点。美国人听到的只是“我们还好”的含义，因此在英军用语未完全转译清楚时，该部队却在面对成千上万名中国士兵进攻。

文章指出，即使同一语言下，英美使用者在表达上的理解也常常不一致，尤其是“估计性概率”类词汇。亚当·库卡斯基的研究发现，“高度可能”一词被听者解读为45%到100%，而“可能”一词常被赋予25%到100%，说明数值含义的分歧非常大。

他还指出国别差异也会影响解读，美国人倾向于更乐观；某些词组几乎可能完全失真，因为可能被理解为0%到100%的任何值。为降低情报沟通歧义，北约和英国政府把这类表述数字化标定，因此当查尔斯三世与特朗普会面时，“出错”的概率被定为不超过5%，而在回避“王权的快乐”等棘手话题时“顺利”的概率则定义为95%以上。

In 1951 during the Korean War, the 29 Brigade was ordered to hold a hill, but quickly ran short of men, ammunition, and morale, and the brigade commander told American allies the situation was “a bit sticky,” a British euphemism for a critical state. The Americans took it as reassurance, so the danger was partly obscured while the brigade faced thousands of Chinese attackers.

The article argues that even with a shared language, British and American speakers are often misaligned on probabilistic wording, especially in estimated likelihood. Research by Adam Kucharski found that “highly likely” was interpreted across listeners from 45% to 100%, and “probable” from 25% to 100%, showing huge variance despite common wording.

He also found nationality effects, with Americans showing greater optimism, and some qualifiers can become effectively meaningless if interpreted across a 0% to 100% range. To reduce ambiguity in intelligence, NATO and the UK government now calibrate such terms numerically: when Charles III and Trump meet, the chance they go wrong is capped at no more than 5%, while the chance things go fine on non-controversial topics is set at 95% plus.

Source: The international problem of weasel words

Subtitle: Two countries divided by a common language

Dateline: 4月 23, 2026 03:40 上午