Okay everybody, brace yourselves… I am going to gripe today. I know, you’re shocked, shocked. Here goes:
I’m starting to notice more and more a disturbing trend in the way important numerical information is being presented to us. Since no one has named it, I will come up with a phrase: I will call it numerical distortion.
The most obvious one you see every day is something like, “grapefruit: two for a dollar.” Now granted, sometimes there is a genuine bulk deal involved, where a single grapefruit is $.75 but there’s a volume discount. However, this is more the exception than the rule. Typically, a single grapefruit is $.50, but the numbers are multiplied on either side (i.e., distorted) in order to make you think that the only way you can get this seemingly low price is to buy more than you really wanted.
That kind of supermarket numerical distortion doesn’t bother me, because I’m pretty much used to it, and I actually take pleasure in buying a single just to let them know they’re not fooling me.
There is another version of supermarket numerical distortion, and this has to do with the phrase “grams of fat.” Did I miss something? Have we converted to the metric system while I was asleep? The candy bars are sold by the ounce, but the unpleasant fat part, well, I have no idea how much of it there is. Everything in the store is sold by the pound, so why, suddenly, do we adopt the metric system? How many of you even know how big a gram actually is? I remember figuring it out one day, but I have since forgotten. Is it part of a liter? I sort of know what that is. Probably not.
But now there’s something else that really bothers me a lot, and that is the way in which government budgets are being presented in a similar fashion.
More and more, I am encountering statements like, “this program will save $1 trillion over 10 years.” Is there some sort of audit occurring in 2021 that I haven’t heard about? Why can’t you just say “will save $100 billion annually?”
Like the grapefruit vendor, these numerical distortions are designed to subtly deceive. It adds a layer of unnecessary parsing on our part to get at the truth, and this is bad.
All these measurements in unknown units and telling us the aggregate savings or tax increases “over 10 years” may seem like a handy little way to disguise unpleasant information, but there is always a side effect when we practice deceit. Whenever I see someone using numerical distortion, I immediately assume that they are pushing their own agenda and have something to hide. In other words, I immediately mistrust them.
A lesson from history: when the Romans took over the western world, they understood the value of consistency. They made everyone speak Latin, and this sped up commerce considerably. When the Spanish took over most of South America, they created a consistency of language. This helped to keep things running smoothly. When the British colonized 25% of the world’s land mass, they created a consistent language which has been a big help to everyone communicating.
I am not getting into a “English as an official language” debate here. But one reason English has become the dominant global language is in part because it is capable of being so precise. It is a wonderful tool, and we should stand up and complain when people start trying to muddy it up in order to conceal their agendas and making things sound a whole lot better, bigger, or smaller than they really are. It is hard to have a productive political discourse if we start perverting the language and allow anyone to get away with deliberately making it hard to understand what the heck they are talking about. We have enough factionalization as it is right now. Whatever your politics, let’s stick to plain English and basic math please.
© Justin Locke
