Mathematical Illiteracy, or Lapse in Copy Editing?

A letter to the editor in today's Daily Progress tries to draw attention to the problem of expensive housing in the Charlottesville area. The letter writers, however, display a sad sort of incompetence when it comes to their grasp of everyday mathematics.

The writers explain that

according to the U.S. Census, the median value of owner-occupied housing in Charlottesville from 2008-2012 was $286,400. With the median household income in Charlottesville at $44,535, a mortgage on the median home value is likely more than half of your monthly net income.

That may all be accurate but the howler follows in the next paragraph:

Homes under the median value are rare, and are often no more than 800 square feet and/or in complete disrepair.

The second part of that sentence may or may not be true, but the first part is demonstrably false.

It is not possible that homes "under the median value are rare," since, by definition, 50 percent of all homes are under the median value. (The other 50 percent are, by definition, above the median value.)

Perhaps the writers were trying to say that homes available for purchase that are also below the median value are rare, but that is not what they said.

Would this kind of innumeracy (mathematical illiteracy) be solved by adopting the Common Core, or made worse by it? Or would this demonstration of innumeracy be solved more simply by having a good copy editor?

(Cross-posted from Rick Sincere News & Thoughts)

Halloween and the Rise of the 'Rebublican'

Yesterday evening, I saw an independent pro-Cuccinelli TV ad on the NBC29 5 o'clock news in Charlottesville.

Produced by something called the "Conservative Campaign Committee," it praises gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli as a "Conservative Rebublican."

You read that right: "REBUBLICAN."

With friends like these, who needs Purple PAC?

You can see the whole video here.

(Cross-posted, in slightly different form, from Bearing Drift.)

By Far the Best Typo of 2011

I have been reading Craig Shirley's new book, December 1941:  31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World (Nashville:  Thomas Nelson, 2011), which is a fascinating account of the days before and after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.

The book is fascinating (and informative) in spite of numerous errors that are the result of inadequate editing -- errors of fact, anachronisms, and simple typos riddle the text.

Yet, of all the mistakes I have noted while reading the book, the best typographical error by far has to be one that occurs on page 169, in the chapter on "The Eighth of December."  This has to be, perhaps, one of the most ironic typos of all time.

In describing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's preparations for his historic speech before Congress asking for a formal declaration of war against Japan, Shirley writes:

Reading the president's original manuscript of his address revealed the sheer power of words.  He initially wrote December 7, 1941, would be a day that would live in "history," but he later crossed out that word, inserted a proofreader's carrot, and scribbled "infamy."

Yes, you read that right:  "proofreader's carrot."

Shirley meant to say "caret."

Just to be clear, this is a proofreader's caret:

 And this is a carrot:

To add to the mix, a few pages later (p. 173), Shirley ends a paragraph about new rules and regulations in reaction to the new state of war with this sentence:

It was unclear how the new edits from Washington would affect second generation Japanese Americans, known as "Nisei."

If that was unclear, one thing is definitely clear:  Craig Shirley, or Thomas Nelson Publishers, needs a new copy "edictor."

Look soon for a full review of December 1941 on my companion blog, Book Reviews by Rick Sincere, where there already is a review of a similar new book by Stanley Weintraub called Pearl Harbor Christmas.

Getting Immigration Backwards

The weekly "Free for All" letters column in The Washington Post accommodates readers who want to vent about something they had read in the Post during the previous several days, often taking issue with grammar, spelling, or punctuation usage.

In yesterday's Post, letter-writer Gib Durfee objects to the way the Post had used "immigrate" in a sentence from an AP story on November 19, in which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was said to be considering "immigrating to Switzerland."

Durfee goes on to say:

Even if readers didn't take Latin in school, they should know that a person emigrates to a new country and immigrates from the old.

It's just a matter of to and fro.

Durfee has it exactly backwards.

This would be clear especially to someone who had taken Latin in school, because they would know that "e-" at the beginning of a word suggests "outside of" or "from," as in "exit" or "exoskeleton." By contrast, the prefix "im-" suggests "in," "to," or "inside" -- compare "implode" and "explode," for instance.

In a Raleigh News & Observer column on language usage from August 2008, journalist Pam Nelson addresses precisely this issue and cites the AP Stylebook, which says:

emigrate, immigrate: One who leaves a country emigrates from it. One who comes into a country immigrates. The same principle holds for emigrant and immigrant.

Nelson goes on to explain that

[Usage expert Bryan] Garner points out that "immigrate" means to migrate into or enter (a country) and "emigrate" means to migrate away from or exit (a country). That distinction is at the heart of a mnemonic I have heard: emigrate means exit; immigrate means enter. [Theodore] Bernstein wrote that "emigrate" needs "from."  [Diana] Hacker makes the same distinction.

I really can't fault the letter writer for missing this distinction; perhaps he learned it backwards from a Latin teacher in high school.

I can, however, fault the Post's editors -- especially the "Free for All" page's copy editors -- for failing to note that the Post's (or the AP's) usage was correct from the outset, and for choosing to run a letter that took them to task for actually being correct.

What's puzzling to me, as well, is that as of 7:32 p.m. on Sunday -- more than a full day after the letter appeared in print -- not a single Post reader has commented on the newspaper's web site about the confusion exhibited (from the Latin, "to hold out") by this letter.  Are there neither emigrants nor immigrants in the Washington Post's circulation area?

Numeracy

Where did Charlottesville Daily Progress reporter Brian McNeill learn how to count?

In his August 21 piece on the move-in of first-year students at the University of Virginia this year, McNeill has this lede:

The University of Virginia was abuzz with activity Saturday as roughly 3,246 students and their families descended upon Grounds for move-in weekend.

Roughly 3,246?

That is a precise number. It is not a "rough estimate" or approximation.

He could have said "roughly 3,200" or even "roughly 3,250." But there is nothing "rough" or indeterminate about "3,246."

Where was McNeill's copy editor?

Turning Japanese

In an otherwise unobjectionable article about the decline of a business providing English-to-Japanese translations in last Saturday's Washington Post, we find this paragraph:

One morning last week, Karol Zipple, the company's only American employee, made a small pile of clips: news stories on increased Japanese demand for American wine, food-borne illnesses and the women's golf tour. Compared with coverage in previous years, it was a depressingly slim product. "We used to be buried in newsprint" before U.S. newspapers began cutting back coverage as a result of the recession and the decline of print journalism, Zipple said.

I did a double-take when I read that first sentence. Why, I wondered, was there "increased Japanese demand for ... food-borne illnesses and the women's golf tour"?

Then I realized that this was a series of separate items defined by "news stories on" rather than "increased Japanese demand for."

The ambiguity could have been avoided by rearranging the objects, like this: "news stories on food-borne illnesses, the women's golf tour, and increased Japanese demand for American wine."

Simple, isn't it?

This might also be a good time to urge the Washington Post to reinstate the serial comma in its style book. It never should have been removed in the first place.

Homophones

The New York Daily News today has an article on its web site about Vice President Joe Biden using "colorful" language in introducing President Obama at a public ceremony.  (I do not know if this article appears, or will appear, in the paper's print edition.)

Reporter Michael Sheridan writes:

Health care reform isn't just a big deal, it's a "big f---ing deal."

At least, that's what Vice President Joe Biden thinks.

The 67-year-old former senator introduced President Obama prior to his signing of the historic health care reform bill into law on Tuesday, and let the colorful word slip while shaking the commander-in-chief's hand.

"You did it," Biden told his boss. "It's a big f---ing deal."

What caught my eye -- and what makes this article fodder for this blog -- is the penultimate paragraph, which says:

Fowl language may be a favorite for vice presidents. Ex-Veep Dick Cheney famously used the infamous phrase on several occasions during his two terms.

Something tells me that Sheridan did not want to suggest that Biden and Cheney talk like our avian friends. He meant to say "foul language," not "fowl language."

A good copy editor would have caught that.

Of course, it might be that the Daily News is trying to suggest that Biden (and, by extension, Cheney) are "chicken s--t."