Just a random thought on some particular English expressions for numbers

Just a random thought on some particular English expressions for numbers:

Certain expressions for numbers in English are often used just for emphasis, even though a simpler expression could have been used to mean the same thing.

An example is "dozen". This literally means "12", but often you will hear someone say something like "There were dozens of people injured in the accident." The use of "dozen" there is used just for emphasis because "dozens" sounds like a lot more than just "36".

Another one is "decades". A decade literally means "10". I recently saw a description of a reporter that said "Mr. Jackson has been a reporter for more than three decades...". That somehow sounds like more than "30+ years". I guess if you wanted to make it sound even longer you could have said "Mr. Jackson has been a reporter for almost 1/3 of a century...".

"Scores" is also used. "Score" means "20", and similar to "dozens", you will often hear news reports saying things like "There were scores of peoples with injuries...".

I suppose these kinds of expressions are not just used to overstate a number, but also used for literary effect. Sometimes I think we just need to read something other than raw numbers.

For example, when reading about poll numbers, you will often see something like this:
"A little over half the population believes that X should be legal, while only 4 in 10 believe that Y should be legal."
Of course that's the same as saying: "55% of people say X should be legal, and 40% believe Y should be legal."

I understand the desire to make your reporting more readable. But personally as an engineer I would rather read the raw numbers. I just think, "Give me the data, let me move on to the next story. I don't want to read all these words." :)