Five numbers, and who prints them
Specs
A bag has five numbers worth knowing. Listings give some of them readily, one of them almost never, and one of them never at all. The count beside each row is calculated from the 47 listings on this site rather than typed into the sentence.
| Number | Unit | How many listings give it | What gets written instead | The test it decides |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| External Dimensions | inches or centimeters | 3of 47 | A trade size such as 20 in, 21 in, 22.5 in or 30 in, which describes the body by convention and not by measurement. | The Gate Sizer |
| Capacity in Liters | liters | 14of 47 | A list of compartments: a shoe compartment, a wet pocket, a toiletry bag, a mesh top panel. All real, none of them a size. | Packing at Home |
| Empty Weight | kilograms or pounds | 0of 47 | The word lightweight, which appears across the organizer listings with no figure attached anywhere. | The Front Door |
| Expansion | percent, or liters before and after | 17of 47 | The single word expandable, which is by far the most common form and carries no figure whatsoever. | The Gate Sizer |
| Wheels and Handle | count and configuration | 13of 47 | Spinner, which means the wheels rotate freely in every direction, and which appears on most of the case listings here. | The Baggage Belt |
A stated size is the size of the body. Wheels, feet and an extended telescoping handle are not usually counted inside it, and the frame at a gate counts all of them.
How to read that middle column
The figures are counts of listings, not scores. A listing that states a capacity is not a better listing than one that does not; it is a listing that has answered one particular question. The reason the counts are worth printing is the shape they make: 14 for capacity, 3 for external size and 0 for empty weight is not a random distribution. It is the distribution of questions that are easy to answer flatteringly.