26 January 2010

Pedantry again

This is from the BBC website (although the same mistake is made by just about all the newspapers):
The UK economy has come out of recession, after figures showed it had grown by a weaker-than-expected 0.1% in the last three months of 2009.

To the extent that the figures show anything, it is that GDP in the fourth quarter of 2009 was 0.1% higher than in quarter 3 of that year. To suggest that GDP grew by that percentage between 1 October 2009 and 31 December 2009 is nonsensical. So why do it?

1 comment:

Albert Einstein said...

I don't understand. If I am 3 foot tall and then grow by 50% then I am 4ft 6ins. I am then 50% higher than I was.