And last night I was genuinely astonished at the news leaked from the Treasury: that cuts to the scientific research budget were to be much less severe than initially indicated.
"You virtually eliminate right-angle crashes and head-on collisions, and the collisions that do occur tend to be much less severe," said Anne McCartt, a senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Bond prices are generally less volatile than stock prices, and a major bond market decline is likely to be much less severe than a major fall in the stock market.
Still, after Iraq's failure to spend its own money on reconstruction was first disclosed in late 2006, Iraqi and American officials repeatedly asserted that the problems would be much less severe the next year, as the new government led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki found its way.
The most depressing thing is that so much of the extra sickness in winter and increased pressure on the health service would be much less severe, or altogether preventable, if only everyone lived in a home they could afford to heat.
If France were suddenly deprived of 3,000 leading scientists, engineers, bankers, painters, poets, and writers, he argued, the result would be catastrophic, but if all the courtiers and bishops and 10,000 landowners vanished, the loss, though deplorable, would be much less severe.
As it happened, the Hatfield crash was much less severe than several other recent crashes, including one a year earlier near Paddington Station, London, in which 31 people died.
Had the fiscal and borrowing conditions been observed, the current crisis would almost certainly have been much less severe.
With a magnitude of 7.1, the tremor was much less severe than the 9.0 earthquake of March 11.
South Korea has also had to grapple with falling exports, though the pace of decline there has been much less severe than in Japan.
Mr. D'Alamberte permitted Mr. Warrick to rejoin the football team before doing the community service, reasoning that the punishment was much less severe than jail time.
