Quote:
Originally Posted by AGB
I read this discussion on the phrase "begging the question" where Toddos explained the real meaning of it.
Now, I'm a bit offended, because not only did I understand the term incorrectly, but I'm also a journalist.
Of course, I'm a Danish one of the sort, doing journalism in Danish, so I guess that's some sort of comfort 
Here's one of his posts:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...0&postcount=40
Anyway, journalists and writers usually don't know how to handle numbers. They often get it wrong, and can't do the most simple thing. I often have to help colleagues out in that regard. Getting numbers wrong is something that really, really annoys me as a reader/listener/viewer.
My latest annoyance is a book by Lee Child, called "Bad Luck & Trouble".
The main character is a bloke called Reacher, and throughout the book, Lee Child describes him as someone who not only likes numbers, but are pretty much obsessed by them. At one point, he "automatically" calculates 42 feet in yards, percentage of a mile, inches and centimeters. And the book is littered with that sort of thing.
That alone would be fine, but at least three times in the book, Reacher proclaims that there is a fifty-fifty chance of something happening, because there are two choices. Yes, in a random pull of number, that would be true. But among other things he's using it to describe the chances of two people being behind some murders, and because there are two people who might have done it, apparently there's a fifty-fifty chance.
At another point, there's a "fifty-fifty chance" that someone is at home, because he either is "at home or at work".
By the same token, there's a fifty-fifty chance evolution is wrong and creationism is right. Or a fifty-fifty chance that I'll marry Christy Turlington, or a fifty-fifty chance I'm dead tomorrow.
Anyway, what are some of your pet peeves?
|
singling someone out that is not involved in a discussion and able to speak up for themselves. c'mon seriously?