To be exact.

A string of comments responding to a story about a street art installation created for the London Olympics:

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Who Owns The Fed  •  Truth or Consequences, New Mexico  •  2 hrs 52 mins ago

The best of Britain already left.

2 Replies

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  Jim 2 hrs 5 mins ago
  

  a few hundred years ago to be exact!

  
  
  
  

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    Steve 24 mins ago
    

    right on Jim!

In addition to recoiling at the bigoted nationalism, please note that Jim's comment cites the time of the best of Britain's departure from the British Isles as being exactly a few hundred years ago. Now I'll apply that same grammatical logic to a few other scenarios:

A: "Exactly how much does this sandwich cost?"
B: "A few dollars."

A: "Can you tell me the exact address of the hospital, please? And quickly!"
B: "It's a few blocks from here."

A: "Exactly how much jet fuel do we have left?"
B: "Enough to go a few hundred miles."
A: "Okay, well, the nearest land at our current heading is 430 miles away, so if we need to turn around, now would be the time to do it. What's the exact fuel level?"
B: "Like a few hundred gallons, I don't know."

So I'm a nerd. But honestly I think that's preferable to thinking that "a few" and "exact" can be applied to the same value. Especially if you're going to be posting stuff all over the internet for everyone to look at.