When you’re listening to the news, you will often hear words that are meant to communicate the probability of something happening.

But when you hear these terms, do you really know what kind of probabilities they’re trying to convey? Do you know how likely “likely” is? Or what probability “probable” is meant to get across?

In some cases, it seems you probably don't.

Professor Adam Kucharski, author of Proof, the Uncertain Science of Certainty, designed a quiz to work out the actual probabilities of the language we use to convey risks.

The data he got back shows how sometimes these words mean very different things to different people.

If you want to try the quiz for yourself, head over to https://probability.kucharski.io/

Email the More or Less team: [email protected]

Presenter: Charlotte McDonald