percentage

[Victor Steinbok]

It's not entirely reasonable, but it's been in common usage for some
time. There are two common uses, really--sometimes it means a small
percent (i.e., single digits or smaller) and sometimes it's any percent
that does not approach 100%. So 66% would be referred to as
"percentage", but 85% is less likely to be appealed to in this way. This
is actually similar to the use of "a fraction of", which, if logically
constructed from its mathematical meaning, should be any part of a whole
up to the whole. But, in practice, this is not, of course, standard
usage. Far more often, when someone says, "a fraction of the costs", he
means "a small part", where "small" can range as well (is 1/5 a
"fraction of"? 1/2?)

I am more concerned about the use of "exponential". Recently, and FNC
host (I believe, it was Shepard Smith) mentioned something being
"exponential"--he then explained that if you double the input, you must
quadruple the output. That's *not* exponential in *any* sense of the
word. Nonetheless, here it stands.

In general, one should not be surprised by such inaccuracies at all. A
few years ago, I noticed that "quadriplegic" has essentially supplanted
"paraplegic" in context where "paraplegic" is correct and "quadriplegic"
is not. It's become essentially generic for inability to use limbs (or
lower body). Given the absolutely clear definitional distinction between
the two, it /should/ be shocking when one replaces the other, but it's
so common that one really should not be surprised by such developments.

     VS-)

     VS-)

On 6/21/2010 1:49 AM, Paul Frank wrote:
> > From yesterday's New York Times:
>
> "When that might happen is not clear. Crude oil is flowing at a rate
> estimated between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil a day from the
> damaged well, and BP has been able to capture only a percentage of
> that with its current containment methods."
>
> When did "a percentage" become "a small percentage"? I would have
> thought "a percentage" could be anything up to 99.99% recurring.
>
> Harrumph,
> Paul
>
> Paul Frank
>

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