Last week I drove from North Carolina to Alabama, and I drove back today. I listened to a few CDs, but I also heard a fair amount of radio—almost as much searching for channels, hearing a snippet of something I didn’t want to listen to, then continuing the search.
There are certain accents and certain vocal cadences on the radio that, when I hear them, my brain immediately says, “NOOOOO.” Often they’re preachers—lots of them on the radio in the South. They’re easy to recognize, even when they’re not quoting the Bible or saying “Gahd” or “Ja-eezzuss!” Another is morning talk guys, or “crews”. I just find that whole type of “topical humor” bland and tiresome. And there’s the good ol’ boy (usually) on a country station talking about politics. Ug. No way.
Well, today, I found I had the same sort of reaction to “99%”.
It could be a legitimate statistic, and in such a case, it’s fine. But what I’m talking about is the use of “99%” (or even worse, “99.9%”) as a euphemism for “I don’t have any real data on this, but I FEEL LIKE it’s obviously this much.”
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s an example. Imagine a not-quite-but-similar-to Rush Limbaugh voice: “Sure lots of people are going online to get their Obamacare, but 99.9% of ‘em can’t sign up because the website’s broke!”
I’m not sure if that’s the best example. I heard “99%” used earlier today. I can’t recall the exact context; it was a comparison, like “___ was more than 99% of ____ for all the ____.” The accent didn’t help either. It was a version of good ol’ boy.
Anyway… I find that usage really annoying, unless it really is a statistic someone has measured. So…stop it, radio hosts. If you wanna talk about the news, that’s fine and absolutely reasonable. But the problem is, 99.9% of you don’t know what you’re talking about; you just make up numbers to reinforce your point.
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