Newsgroups: alt.usage.english, alt.folklore.urban
Followup-To: alt.usage.english
From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 23:52:42 GMT
Subject: Re: Bungee Jumping cartoon, researched

I wrote about the gaffe in the Toles cartoon that shows Clinton
bungeeing down the valley of the shadow of death while thinking:

> Distance to rocks: 3214 feet, length of cord: 500 feet, percent of
> cord expansion: 642% ... or was that 644% ....

Amazingly, t...@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) still argues that
this statement might mean the cord would stretch to 3210 feet or 3220
feet, depending on the percentage:

> I stand by my statement.  It's ambiguous and doesn't say the cord
> stretches *by* anything.

There is no ambiguity in the caption.  You merely have to consider
what a percent of expansion is.  The word ``expansion'' expresses an
increase.  An ``expansion of 0%'' or a ``0% expansion'' or (to quote
faithfully) a ``percentage of expansion: 0%'' means no expansion at
all, leaving the initial amount unchanged.  Similarly, a 100%
expansion is a doubling of the initial amount, a 200% expansion is a
tripling, and so forth.  It is easy to see that a 642% expansion is a
7.42-fold increase in size.  I can't believe you can otherwise
competently use the English language and still not understand the
meanings of these words.  If you were not so inexplicably wedded to
your (and Toles's) error, you would never argue with this.

> While less clear than one would want writing an engineering manual,
> to say the least, my remembrance of my interpretation is at least as
> legitimate as yours....

I disagree.  The problem is not that the writing is unclear, it is
just that you have not read it with care.  [It is true that if I read
this in an engineering manual, I would look for corroboration that the
writer of the manual did not make the same error you and Toles made.
But that is because there's a lot of sloppy arithmetic and writing in
engineering manuals.]  It is telling that you argue on the strength of
your remembrance of your interpretation.  Apparently, your initial
interpretation was based on a careless reading of the text, so you
didn't notice Toles's blunder.  When I saw it, I noticed the error,
and so I re-examined it carefully to make sure that the error was one
of his misdenotation rather than my misinterpretation.  I still have
not heard anything other than your preposterous claims of ambiguity to
argue against my conclusion.

> ... especially given the fact that all I was disputing was your
> unreserved claim that the preposition "by" was present.

I never claimed that the preposition ``by'' appeared in the caption.
What I do claim is that a ``percentage of expansion'' of 642% happens
to mean the same as an ``642% expansion or an ``expansion by 642%''.
The meaning you argued for, of ``expansion to 642% of the original
size'' means something different, in the same way ``expanding two
meters'' means something different from ``expanding to two meters''.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil

GratNonUL: A budding young law student's old hat expands 10 percent.
He files suit based on the possibility that a 10 percent expansion may
mean that it became one tenth of its former size, crushing his skull.
Regrettably, we must dismiss the suit because nothing of the sort has
occurred.  The hat has merely enlarged to contain a modest increment
in the fatuity of his arguments.