Asked why they didn't look around for solutions, those I was helping hemmed and hawed, but eventually they more or less admitted that they were afraid to try.

They are as nervous and faltering as you when they ask for the first time.

If there's an emotional subject you want to avoid (for instance, you've just separated), rehearse stock answers to common questions, like "Where's your other half?" so you aren't left stumbling.

The strangest thing about all this misuse of mathematics is that when there is an actual need to discuss figures, managers go all coy, and proper numerical terms are nowhere to be seen.

Around this figure the West, for four decades, prevaricated.