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One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

Mind that apostrophe.
EssDeeAitch
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One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233064

Postby EssDeeAitch » July 1st, 2019, 9:11 am

Reading a good article on the Investors Chronicle on housing the journalist stated ".......estimates that only a quarter of 27 year-olds now own their own property, compared with 43% in the early 2000's"

Really? A quarter compared to 43%? Why not 25% and 43%? I do understand that it is not difficult (or even a challenge) to mentally compute the scale of the difference by oh why mix up imperial and metric units?

The article does this on a number of occasions so I suppose the journalist thinks it is a smart construct.

bungeejumper
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233069

Postby bungeejumper » July 1st, 2019, 9:16 am

Surely, the quarter is a finger-in-the-wind guess, while the 43% is based on some sort of statistical fact-ery?

It may very well be a blunder by the author, but the general instruction to (responsible) hacks is that they should avoid appearing to have more precision than they do.

BJ

EssDeeAitch
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233070

Postby EssDeeAitch » July 1st, 2019, 9:17 am

bungeejumper wrote:Surely, the quarter is a finger-in-the-wind guess, while the 43% is based on some sort of statistical fact-ery?

It may very well be a blunder by the author, but the general instruction to (responsible) hacks is that they should avoid appearing to have more precision than they do.

BJ


Possibly, but the use of the word "estimates" covers that ground.

bungeejumper
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233076

Postby bungeejumper » July 1st, 2019, 9:29 am

EssDeeAitch wrote:Possibly, but the use of the word "estimates" covers that ground.

Fair point, but the other rule to journalists (as per The Economist Style Guide, etc) is that they shouldn't assume that the reader has had his morning coffee yet. There's no particular harm in the additional clarity that you can get from saying the same thing in an additional way, for the benefit of the half-asleep. Even though it annoys razor-sharp analytical intellects like yours and mine. :lol:

BJ

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233087

Postby UncleEbenezer » July 1st, 2019, 10:14 am

EssDeeAitch wrote:
bungeejumper wrote:Surely, the quarter is a finger-in-the-wind guess, while the 43% is based on some sort of statistical fact-ery?

It may very well be a blunder by the author, but the general instruction to (responsible) hacks is that they should avoid appearing to have more precision than they do.

BJ


Possibly, but the use of the word "estimates" covers that ground.

I find that alarming that you should say that, especially in a context where pedantry is pursued, or at least acknowledged. You appear to be confusing estimate - which has a stated and reproducible basis in reality (albeit often hopelessly misunderstood and misrepresented in the press), with guess, which describes a gut feeling, and fits the context of a casual your guess is as good as mine without the need for analysis of their respective merits.

Though it may also have been that the article to which you refer misuses the word.

PinkDalek
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233094

Postby PinkDalek » July 1st, 2019, 10:47 am

“... in the early 2000’s”

Grocer alert.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233095

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 1st, 2019, 10:49 am

I spotted that, but thought it had been ruled as acceptable, if somewhat ugly (cf CD's, ISA's)

bungeejumper
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233096

Postby bungeejumper » July 1st, 2019, 10:50 am

Okay, let's try and put some meat on the bones here.

The report that the article refers to is actually more than a year old, and it's from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, and it covers the period from 2014 to 2017. But the Investors Chronicle reporter here has been too bone-idle to do any better digging, and too coy to admit that he's using such old figures. Hence his sensible decision to fudge the statistical issue.

You'll find it here: https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publicat ... /BN224.pdf . And the executive summary says:
At the age of 27, those born in the late 1980s had a homeownership rate of 25%, compared with 33% for those born five years earlier (in the early 1980s) and 43% for those born ten years earlier (in the late 1970s).

Sound familiar? (Actually, the 25% figures is right in there, of course!) But if the journo wasn't man enough to admit that his figures were getting a bit curly at the edges, then that wouldn't have brought much cred to his publication. :| The FT often quotes old stats if they're the best available, but it doesn't try to dress them up falsely as today's news.

Harrumph.

BJ

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233102

Postby UncleEbenezer » July 1st, 2019, 11:00 am

PinkDalek wrote:Grocer alert.

Why pick on that when there's also a misused preposition, a split infinitive, a deeply suspect terminological inexactitude, and downright linguistic collapse after "difference"?
AleisterCrowley wrote:I spotted that, but thought it had been ruled as acceptable, if somewhat ugly (cf CD's, ISA's)

Acceptable to whom?

Bah, Humbug.

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233104

Postby PinkDalek » July 1st, 2019, 11:08 am

AleisterCrowley wrote:I spotted that, but thought it had been ruled as acceptable, if somewhat ugly (cf CD's, ISA's)


I use CDs and ISAs, although rarely. ;)

I thought someone would pick me up on my deliberate misuse of Grocer, as against Greengrocer.

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233107

Postby bungeejumper » July 1st, 2019, 11:16 am

PinkDalek wrote:I thought someone would pick me up on my deliberate misuse of Grocer, as against Greengrocer.

My grocer has not been green since the morning after of New Year's Day 2016.

BJ

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233108

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 1st, 2019, 11:27 am

PinkDalek wrote:
AleisterCrowley wrote:I spotted that, but thought it had been ruled as acceptable, if somewhat ugly (cf CD's, ISA's)


I use CDs and ISAs, although rarely. ;)

I thought someone would pick me up on my deliberate misuse of Grocer, as against Greengrocer.


The BBC seem to favour 'Isas', which looks awful

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48759591

PinkDalek
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233170

Postby PinkDalek » July 1st, 2019, 2:58 pm

AleisterCrowley wrote:The BBC seem to favour 'Isas', which looks awful

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48759591


Agreed but it is in their searchable style guide as Isa http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/academy/acad ... _2018.docx (as against ISAs https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts).

As is:

Dates do not require apostrophes (eg: 1900s) - unless the century is omitted (eg: the England squad of '66).

PinkDalek
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233172

Postby PinkDalek » July 1st, 2019, 3:03 pm

bungeejumper wrote:
PinkDalek wrote:I thought someone would pick me up on my deliberate misuse of Grocer, as against Greengrocer.

My grocer has not been green since the morning after of New Year's Day 2016.


Far too clever for me, in that I don’t get the joke nor understand what a “morning after of” means.

EssDeeAitch
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233175

Postby EssDeeAitch » July 1st, 2019, 3:09 pm

PinkDalek wrote:
bungeejumper wrote:
PinkDalek wrote:I thought someone would pick me up on my deliberate misuse of Grocer, as against Greengrocer.

My grocer has not been green since the morning after of New Year's Day 2016.


Far too clever for me, in that I don’t get the joke nor understand what a “morning after of” means.


New Years Eve is associated with parties and too much to drink and "Green around the gills" (or just green) describes someone who looks ill, especially someone who looks nauseated. Fish gills are normally red. Presumably, a fish with green gills is a sick fish.

And it was not necessarily a joke.

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233177

Postby AleisterCrowley » July 1st, 2019, 3:15 pm

--- apart from the green-gilled trout Salmo trutta nausensis which has naturally green gills which turn red when it's feeling a bit poorly.

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233206

Postby UncleEbenezer » July 1st, 2019, 4:40 pm

AleisterCrowley wrote:--- apart from the green-gilled trout Salmo trutta nausensis which has naturally green gills which turn red when it's feeling a bit poorly.

Is that Salmo Nella's boyfriend?

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233229

Postby PinkDalek » July 1st, 2019, 6:58 pm

EssDeeAitch wrote:New Years Eve is associated with parties and too much to drink and "Green around the gills" (or just green) describes someone who looks ill, especially someone who looks nauseated. ...


Thanks for the explanation and I realise you intended to type New Year's Eve.

Even so, bungeejumper made reference, I believe, to the day after New Year's Day. Is there more to tell or do many Grocer's celebrate New Year's Eve to such an extent that they are still suffering on 2 January? Unless his Grocer is based in Scotland, which would most likely explain the situation.

EssDeeAitch
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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233234

Postby EssDeeAitch » July 1st, 2019, 7:14 pm

PinkDalek wrote:
EssDeeAitch wrote:New Years Eve is associated with parties and too much to drink and "Green around the gills" (or just green) describes someone who looks ill, especially someone who looks nauseated. ...


Thanks for the explanation and I realise you intended to type New Year's Eve.

Even so, bungeejumper made reference, I believe, to the day after New Year's Day. Is there more to tell or do many Grocer's celebrate New Year's Eve to such an extent that they are still suffering on 2 January? Unless his Grocer is based in Scotland, which would most likely explain the situation.


Or indeed a Scottish grocer in any part of the country.

Year's yes, well :oops:

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Re: One fourth, a quarter or 25% - but not all three

#233236

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » July 1st, 2019, 7:25 pm

EssDeeAitch wrote:Reading a good article on the Investors Chronicle on housing the journalist stated ".......estimates that only a quarter of 27 year-olds now own their own property, compared with 43% in the early 2000's"

Really? A quarter compared to 43%? Why not 25% and 43%? I do understand that it is not difficult (or even a challenge) to mentally compute the scale of the difference by oh why mix up imperial and metric units?

The article does this on a number of occasions so I suppose the journalist thinks it is a smart construct.

I work in the construction industry. I often ring my suppliers and order 24m of 4" x 1" rough sawn timber. I've yet to order 4' of 100 x 25 rough sawn though. The journalist is, like me, an old fossil.

AiY


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