bloopie

[Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]

The tireless Barry A. Popik writes:

>>>>>
TV MEDICAL AD "BLOOPIE"

     There is an ad running on local television for the Staten Island College
Hospital.  A doctor states that "there have been more changes in the past ten
years than there have been in the past hundred."
     My bet is that there have been more medical changes in the past hundred
years than in the past ten years, because we're talking about NINETY MORE
YEARS.
     Is there a term for this mistake?
<<<<<

I guess it would counting as (unintentionally) taking the whole for the part: he
said "the past hundred", meaning to refer to "the rest of the past hundred",
i.e., the preceding ninety. I'm sure there's a name for this as an *intentional*
figure of speech, but I can't think of it.

-- Mark