An area equivalent to the size of Greece

A recent BBC News article mentions "the discovery of a vast 'microbial mat', covering an area equivalent to the size of Greece".

It's unusual to see Greece used as a unit of comparison or measurement. I find it harder to gauge the area of Greece than, say, France, because of Greece's irregular shape and large number of islands. Or are we only talking about mainland Greece?

Interestingly, the country closest in size to Greece is England, with an area of 130,395km2 as opposed to Greece's 131,957km2.

So why didn't BBC News use England as a unit of comparison rather than Greece? I'm fairly sure that a) more British people will read the article in question than Greek people, and b) British people have a better idea of the area of England than the area of Greece.

Or would using England as a unit of comparison be more confusing to readers who are neither Greek nor British? When I taught English as a foreign language in Russia, many of my students were hazy on the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom.

Expiry date is one one one two

So I've just paid my electricity bill over the phone. My electricity company has a voice recognition system in place, so instead of speaking to a real person I just followed the cues and read out my account number, card number and so on as required.

All was going swimmingly until I was asked to read out my debit card's expiry date. On the card itself this is given as '11/12' (in that format) so after a moment's hesitation I said "eleven, twelve". No dice! I then tried "November two thousand and twelve". The system grudgingly accepted this, replying with: "Your card expiry date is one one one two. Is this correct?"

Note to companies using voice recognition systems: when you ask customers for information, please tell them how to give that information.

(And note to potential fraudsters: my card's expiry date isn't actually 11/12. Probably.)

Gang 'jailed for a total of 94 years'

This evening's 8pm news summary on BBC One mentioned the sentencing of a drug-smuggling gang. The newsreader said:

Patrick Walsh and his accomplices were jailed for a total of 94 years

However she did not say how many accomplices there were.

If Walsh had 20 accomplices, that figure of 94 years would seem on the low side; conversely, if he had only two, it would seem rather high.

So it's almost meaningless to be told the number of years without also being told the number of accomplices.

(According to the East London Advertiser, Walsh had five accomplices.)

Incidentally, I was amused to hear the gang referred to as "international drug smugglers". Unless told otherwise, I assume that drug smugglers smuggle drugs from one country to another, making them by default "international".

But that's just my interpretation.

Earths every minute vs Suns every year

From a science feature in yesterday's Metro:



Wow, those figures certainly sound impressive. But I have no idea how many Suns every year make up one Earth every minute - or vice versa. So does the largest known quasar consume matter more quickly than the brighest known quasars? I assume so, but without looking up some figures and getting my calculator out, I don't really know.

Excuse the pun, but things like this matter.

The city of Derby, Iowa: population 131

The Wikipedia page on Derby, Iowa begins:

Derby is a city in Lucas County, Iowa, United States. The population was 131 at the 2000 census.

A city with 131 inhabitants! That made me laugh. Even St David's, the UK's smallest city, has a population of 1,800 (ish).

But then I dug around on Wikipedia a little more and discovered this: "In Oregon, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa, all incorporated municipalities are cities."

So that explains it.

We're all alcoholics now

I know I've written a lot about shoddy language use in newspapers recently, and about the woolly use of figures, but this is a particularly fine example of both so bear with me.

I'm a "dependent drinker". So are you. At least according to free London paper Metro today.

Its lead story is about "problem drinkers" in the UK costing the health service £1.3bn a year. It goes on to talk about "dependent drinkers"- even worse than problem drinkers - who "down up to 50 pints a week".

Now think of a number up to 50. I choose, um, 10 - but you may have a different number.

So far this week I've drunk five pints and no doubt will drink a few more by the end of the week - quite possibly 10 in total. That's a number 'up to 50', as we've just established. So that makes me a dependent drinker. Thanks, Metro.

In fact, by this logic, the only people who aren't dependent drinkers are those who drink - or rather, down, which is quite a feat - more than 50 pints a week.

(Interestingly, the version of the story on the Metro website doesn't include the offending phrase, so maybe they realised their mistake.)

Your number's up (or down)

Accuracy is important, especially when dealing with statistics. I just had this phrase in some copy:

Approximately up to 25%, and in some cases more

So that would be 25%, or a number close to 25%, or a number less than 25%, or a number more than 25%. So it could be any number really. That's useful.

Keep it simple

In a report on a company closure I came across the phrase: "approximately 81 positions were lost". Obviously "approximately" doesn't belong next to 81 so I changed it to "approximately 80". Then I thought for a moment and changed the phrase to "about 80 jobs were lost".

Why do some writers instinctively assume that longer words are somehow better?