Re: OT: Musical languistics
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, June 4, 2003, 11:59 |
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On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 01:36:17PM +0200, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> In Swedish, some people (eg, me) are very careful about the difference between
> _procent_ "percent" and _procentenhet_ "percentage point", whereas others
> happily use _procent_ for either meaning. In the last general election, the
> Left Party went from about 12% to about 8% of the vote - quite alot worse than
> the _4 procent_ fall many people are saying that they suffered, if you ask me!
We have the same situation in the US. Perhaps fewer people
are careful about the difference, but convention helps - usually
in polls etc. one refers to "gaining/losing points" rather than
"gaining/losing percent". Note that the "percentage" isn't required;
we understand what "points" means in context. Although I think
"points" is an overused term. Why do we talk about stock prices
moving up or down by "points", when they're actually measured in
currency units?
-Mark
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