July 16, 2006
From the desk of Jane Galt:Department of Awful Statistics
From a Christian Science Monitor story on bankruptcy:
The morality debate is heating up amid signs of trouble for people living on the margins:• Even though tougher filing laws took effect Oct. 17 [italics mine], the number of monthly bankruptcy filings grew by more than 300 percent between November and March, from 13,758 to 49,977, according to a June report from the Administrative Office of the US Courts.
Needless to say, this is completely addled. This is exactly what we would expect: November bankruptcies plummeted, because anyone who was thinking of filing around then rushed to declare Chapter 7 before the new law took effect. The level then slowly rose, as new candidates entered the bankruptcy pipeline.
In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite of what the story implies: what numbers we have on bankruptcies indicate that they have remained shockingly low, even lower than advocates for the reform were hoping, long after most people expected them to rebound. (This is not to imply that I am in favour of the reform; I was against it. But it certainly is surprising.) The CSM's usage of that statistic is at best an embarassing mistake; at worst, shoddy obfuscation in order to muster a third statistic in service of the point. A theme I agree with, incidentally; with household savings in the negative territory and interest rates rising, it could hardly not be a difficult time for debtors.
1 (Why must we journalists always have at least three statistics? At my publication we don't; I'd handle the problem by killing the bullets and saying something like "Those living on the margins are having a harder time of it. Foreclosures on home mortgages were up 38 percent nationally in the first quarter of 2006, according to property tracker RealtyTrac Inc. And Cardweb.com says that the average American household owes more than $9,300 on credit cards, up from $2,966 in 1990." But elsewhere, it seems to be some iron law that if you have two examples of something, you must come up with a third, come hell or high water. Let's call it Jane's Law of the Third Supporting Fact. This leads to the awful temptation to fudge when no good third anecdote data presents itself.
"(Why must we journalists always have at least three statistics? "
Because (1) a two-legged stool is unstable, (2) a triumvirate sounds cooler than a duumvirate,
and, uhh (3) we all know 3 heads are better than 2.
"X and Y" makes it sound like those two things together are the end of the story. "X,Y,Z" implies that there are a host of facts out there, and the author is presenting merely a few.
Why do bobbies always say "Hello, hello, hello"?
I've always seen it transcribed as " 'ullo, 'ullo, 'ullo." Your bobbies must have gone to a public school.
Many (if not most) basic writing manuals -strongly- encourage 3 supporting items in an arguement/opinion essay. I'd imagine that most j-school grads have had that model drilled into them so long it's simply second nature.
Jane, a person could also call it the Alice's Restaurant theory:
And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out.You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization.
"...and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." -Ecclesiastes 4:12b. But yeah, sometimes it's a dumb rule. Way to think outside the, er... triangle.
"Why must we journalists always have at least three statistics?"
It's the Lewis Carroll tradition. Viz:
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."
Didn't Larry King file for bankruptcy multiple times?
As long as we're tossing quotes at the number:
Once is happenstance,
Twice is coincidence,
Three times is enemy action.
It's an ancient rhetorical device that goes back, I believe, to the Romans. Life, liberty, and... Truth, freedom, and... Winston Churchill gets extra points for offering more than blood, toil, and tears.
Exactly. Rome collapsed because only the Senate and the Roman People ran the place, and because it could only offer the masses bread and circuses. Christianity supplanted the teachings of Plato and the Stoics because the later foolishly added temperance to their wisdom, courage, and justice. And the Stooges knew better than to have Curly and Shemp in the group at the same time.
'tihrd datum' not 'third data'. if you wana say its a mass nuoun thats fine but dont then go an talk about discrete instences of it.
jeez. ur losin it meg. youl be sayign 'teh reson is bacause' next.
I wonder how that rule of three plays with readers from one of those cultures (such as some American Indians) where 3 is considered an unlucky number? OTOH, they would love Winston Churchill's list of four. (Blood, toil, sweat, and tears.)
And is it a sign of the decline of Western Civilization that, when a rock group cribbed their name from Winnie's list, they left out "toil"?
Zidane's Headbutt Inspires Web-Based Games, Videos
what an interesting idea for a game - looks like they getting deperate
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them.
Comments are Closed.