Mini-mini wheats.

Mini wheats is a cereal that has taken a block of wheat, and made them small and bite-sized. Thus the name mini.

Now they have even smaller mini wheats, mini-mini wheats. I bought a box from the grocery store yesterday.

The box says these mini wheats are "nearly HALF THE SIZE". I interpret that as smaller, but not quite 50% smaller. Perhaps they're only 40% smaller.

But then again, when you think about it, the sentence could mean that they're not quite half the size they're smaller still - they're almost half the size. Perhaps they're 55% smaller and the manufacturer couldn't quite get them to be 50% so they added "nearly" to the box.

Yet those interpretations are opposite. How can "nearly or almost half the size" mean bigger than half the size and smaller than half the size?

I'm going to go with my first interpretation.