A Quick Question

[VFrieden]

Which one sounds longer: 2 weeks or 14 days?

...I'm just curious

[Flash525]

Fourteen Days. If you had a week to go before something happened, and you had two choices of how to say this. Either seven days, or 7200 minutes. It is always (or usually) the item with the higher set of numbers that sounds longest.

[Vantage]

Yeah, 14 days.
If you say it that way it sounds as if you are ticking off each day impatiently, while two weeks seems like you're paying less attention and you'll probably perceive it as passing by more quickly.

[Homer Gonerson]

Originally Posted by Aerilon

Fourteen Days. If you had a week to go before something happened, and you had two choices of how to say this. Either seven days, or 7200 minutes. It is always (or usually) the item with the higher set of numbers that sounds longest.

I think the 7200 minutes sounds shorter. It puts it into a unit that's easily imaginable.

[wjlaslo]

14 days, since that implies 14 days of hardship. 2 weeks implies 10 days of hardship and 4 days of rest

[Monster_user]

Originally Posted by 7

Which one sounds longer: 2 weeks or 14 days?

...I'm just curious

Well, it isn't a simple question. I use estimates to guess the length of time.

2 weeks is 12-15 days. 14 days is an exact number, and thus usually longer.

[Mr. Pedantic]

I don't get the question.

They seem the same length of time to me...

[Inyri Forge]

It's about the psychological effect.

Which seems longer if you tell someone "you have 14 days to finish" versus "you have two weeks to finish."

For me, two weeks seems longer. Thinking of days as individual units makes them feel shorter, whereas thinking of them as two big units makes me feel like I have more time to slack off.

Yes, Mr. Pedantic, we're all aware that technically they're the same amount of time.

[Bs|Archaon]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pedantic

I don't get the question.

They seem the same length of time to me...

It's not about the length of time itself which is obviously the same; it's about how we perceive that length of time.

A similar example would be this:

Have you ever seen the image of a candlestick and two faces? The faces and the candlestick are always in the picture, but most (if not all) people see one before the other (even after seeing it god knows how many times I always see the candlestick before the faces).

[Mr. Pedantic]

Have you ever seen the image of a candlestick and two faces? The faces and the candlestick are always in the picture, but most (if not all) people see one before the other (even after seeing it god knows how many times I always see the candlestick before the faces).

For me they switch, depending on where I look and how I focus.

Which seems longer if you tell someone "you have 14 days to finish" versus "you have two weeks to finish."

They still sound exactly the same...