When the throttle is 3/4 open, you could state that it is ‘quarter to open’. 
I was once teaching a student from Hong Kong called up a not so local airfield where the air ground operator communication is impeccable.
The student then said one an earth is this bloke on about “tree, foer and Fife”
And you know I think he has a point. Most people can count to ten. Why do we then go and make it more difficult?
we are all accustomed to interpreting what we hear and read
That’s about the nicest apology I ever saw for poor writing and spelling
English is an international means of communication. So in a sense it doesn’t matter that a local (Scottish) agricultural machinery supplier advertises in this week’s Galloway News that a key feature of his latest 1,000 cc diesel quad bike is “engine breaking”. We know what he means, even if he can’t write it.
You won’t find howlers like that on EuroGA, but when people speak or write English imperfectly, it matters little to those of us who are lucky enough to have a version of English as our mother tongue, because we are all accustomed to interpreting what we hear and read.
LeSving wrote:
1/2 full is better than 1/2 empty
Depends if you’re speaking about fuel tanks and you are on fire or glasses of beer and you’re thirsty…. 
1/2 full is better than 1/2 empty
On starting a (warm) Rotax, that becomes “1 cm open” – slightly less ambiguous, in fact flooded Rotaxen are rather exceptional.
Just out of curiosity: What is the practical relevance of measuring power setting in “throttle travel quarters”? All powered airplanes I have flown so far call for specific values of RPM, Manifold Pressure, N1/N2 percentage or ITT irrespective of the throttle lever travel that is required to achieve these figures.
The only exception is the stupid “quarter inch open” called for when starting small Cessnas and Pipers and which many pilots/students interpret as “quarter open”, thereby flooding the engine in unsuccessful attempts…
Well, we could turn this into a “pilot personality test” and it would be:
1/4 open = “three quarters closed”, 1/2 open = “half closed”, 3/4 open = “quarter closed”
CAA personality test:
1/4 open = “closed”, 1/2 open = “closed”, 3/4 open = “closed”
Spanish ATC English language proficiency test:
1/4 open = “… silence…”, 1/2 open = “… silence…”, 3/4 open = “… silence…”
Thank you Peter !!
