Warp wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> almost exactly 10,000 pipes.
> 
>   Isn't "almost exactly" an oxymoron?

Probably fits the grammatical criteria of being classified as such, yes.

"exactly 10,000 pipes" would mean... exactly 10,000 pipes.

"approximately 10,000 pipes" would mean some figure roughly as large as 
10,000, but not necessarily especially close to it.

"almost exactly 10,000 pipes" means a number which is very close to 
10,000, but not 10,000.

[As it turns out, Wikipedia claims the precise numbers I was referring 
to are in fact 9,999 and 10,268 respectively. I was under the impression 
that they were closer together than that...]

-- 
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