More broadcast journalism

[Jonathan Lighter]

>
Perhaps the crime rate in Arizona has increased (if in fact that is
the case) because there are more sheriffs out looking for
illegal-alien-looking people.<

Maybe, but now we have evidence that they're *not* looking.

It sounds to me too that if Holmes's opinion in this case is hasty, to say
the least.

JL

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: More broadcast journalism
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5/1/2010 09:15 AM, Bill Palmer wrote:
> >Twice in the past few days (Lou Dobbs this morning + one other time
> >a few days ago by someone else, but I don't remember who)
> >conservative commentators have asserted that Arizona now has a crime
> >rate equal to that of NYC.  That seems unremarkable.  I'm sure there
> >are many places with crime rates that equal or exceed
> >NYC's...Detroit, Richmond, St, Louis, Atlanta, maybe.
>
> Sherlock Holmes always said (well, he said once) that there was
> surely more crime in the country than in the city, because there was
> less chance of being observed.  (Gov. Bradford of Plymouth would
> probably have agreed with him.  When journalizing 1642 -- a year when
> he was seriously disturbed about the apparently increased rate of
> serious crime -- Bradford wrote "hear [that is, here] (as I am verily
> perswaded) is not more evills in this kind, nor nothing nere so many
> by proportion, as in other places; but they are here more discoverd
> and seen, and made publick by due serch, inquisition, and due punishment".)
>
> Perhaps the crime rate in Arizona has increased (if in fact that is
> the case) because there are more sheriffs out looking for
> illegal-alien-looking people.  Just as the rate of <name any of
> several diseases> has increased because we are now better at finding it.
>
>
> >It would only be noteworty if there was an equal amount of total
> >crime, nest-ce pas?
>
> Why is the total amount of crime more significant than the rate (say,
> per person per year)?
>
> Joel
>
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