99.44% pure

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

> 
> 
Hmmmmm, the math would seem to be pretty simple. If you have 100 pounds of 
ivory soap and it contains .56% impurity, that would amount to 100 x .0056, or 
.56 pounds or 4.48 ounces. In an 8-ounce bar of soap, tht would amount to .0224 
ounces. So the "once molecule for a vbar of soap the size of the distance 
between the sun and Jupiter seems to be seriously   in error. I'm not sure what 
math Paige was using--maybe Paige can elaborate?

Of course the claims are puffery, even so. And if you think about it, who 
wants .0224 ounces of impurtity in her hand soap? What if it is a highly toxic 
radioactive substance? Drool from the soap-maker's lips? Dead skin from the 
soapmaker's unwashed hand? Roach droppings? Mascara? An eyelash? And is each vbar 
of soap 99.44% puire, or is that just every ton of soap that comes out of the 
factory? If each ton contains one dead mouse chpped up and pureed and 
distributed in the first 500 bars, and the remaining bars are correspondingly "pure" 
(enough to make the average come out at 99.44% for the whole ton) does that 
count?

One of my mother's sayings was, "Well, they say we all eat a peck of dirt in 
our lives." Did she make this up, or have others heard it as well?


> 
> "hpst at earthlink.net" <hpst at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header 
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "hpst at earthlink.net"
> Subject: Re: 99.44% pure
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> 
> Allison,
> 
> My friend James "The Amazing" Randi once asked a chemist about the claim on
> a homeopathic remedy what x% pure meant.
> 
> His friend replied that it meant that if you had a ball of pure water which
> extended from the sun to as I recall the orbit of Jupiter only one molecule
> of any other substance could exist.
> 
> I've done some of the math on this, and Randi's friend was totally correct.
> 
> Bullshit is bullshit and if you look at the labels on some homeopathic
> remedies their claims are physically impossible.
> 
> Page Stephens
> 
> 

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org