• idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    0.5% strongly approve, rounds up to 1%. 39.5% somewhat approve, rounds up to 40%. The proportion of people who, to varying degrees, approve is then listed as 41%, because otherwise people would see it as them saying 1+40=40.

    People are going to say they don’t understand math either way, so they just need to pick a convention and stick to it.

    • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 day ago

      Ok, fair enough, yet again you can’t divide the group into smaller groups and by rounding up ending up with a larger group. Percent means per 100. It can never end up being more than 100, except for Trump who is going to reduce medicine prices 1200%. I mean, Americans use weird measurements already, their education system is already fucked and getting worse, I can understand they fail at primary school level math. But this is a British news paper.