Which years?

Somebody hands you a number. Before you believe it or fight it, run one check.

Find the period. Not the year buried in the sentence, the stretch of time the number is supposed to cover. It is either said out loud, or it is not.

A number with a date is a fact. A number with “for years” is a verdict wearing a number.

Take the last big claim you met. Not the number. The period: where does it start, where does it end, and does the sentence actually say?

Why it works: hiding in time is the cheapest way to move damage. “Lost millions” is checkable. “Lost millions for years” sounds bigger and is harder to check, which is the point. The number survives the look. The period does not.

The same check kills the rebuttal. The push-back usually runs the move in reverse: “it was fine,” no date. A true number with a missing period is still a verdict.

On the live wire, somebody said the Kennedy Center “has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars for years.” The number is real. The period is not: the 2024 books showed a surplus, and the hundreds of millions is a loss the center projects now, forward into 2025 and 2026. “For years” reaches backward to grab damage that sits in the future.

Run it on the next thing you read. If it survives its own period, keep it. If it doesn't, you just caught something, and you can hand the catch on in two words: “Which years?”

That's the whole tool. Costs nothing to use.