Harry Shannon
If you grew up in the UK before 1971, you had to learn how to cope with your money, which was divided into pounds, shillings, and pence (pennies). The abbreviation is Lsd (or £sd), after the Latin names.
I hadn’t realised before, but according to Wikipedia this was a system once used across Western Europe. There were 12 penc…
Tag: numeracy
UK’s Daily Mail misleads on COVID-19 vaccines
Harry Shannon
What is it about people who write or speak for a living? You often hear them proudly announce that they can’t do math. Which really means they are admitting they’re not properly educated.
It has consequences. If journalists are innumerate, they can’t do their job well. Anyone with an agenda can easily mislead them, and in…
Emerald is Not a Gem
Harry Shannon
This morning I got an email from Emerald Publishing, publishers of hundreds of academic journals. The email began:
“In August 2020, we commissioned a global survey to gather views on change within the academic sector. The survey was sent to a random selection of 172,033 academics, librarians and students within …
Conversions, approximations, and an innumerate historian
Harry Shannon
There’s a story about
a museum guide, who was showing visitors around the exhibits. Coming to an ancient artifact, the guide
stated: “This one is five million and three years old.” One curious visitor asked: “How can you be so
accurate with the dating?” The guide
answered: “Well, when I became a guide…