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This 3-part statement from The Alantic seems to struggle some with ranking scale:
Arkansas consistently ranks at the bottom of the nation’s poverty rankings: In 2014, nearly one in five people lived below the poverty line...making the state 48th richest in the nation
The 1st part suggests poverty, but appears to say that Arkankas is prosperous by rank.
The middle part suggests poverty again, though the ratio could support prosperity too.
The last part turns around and suggests prosperity by not mentioning how many states there are in the union.
On balance they're probably making the case for poverty.
There's always trouble lurking when you try to compare negative things. When you "turn up the air conditioner", are you trying to make the temperature higher (up), or make the AC do more of what it does?
I for one have always struggled with the notion of a "larger scale map". Does that mean a map of the same area is larger, or does it mean that the same size map covers a larger territory?
If I read or heard "larger scale map" with no additional context, I'd be confused about the meaning too. Since the scale of a map is a ratio, say 1" = 10 miles, there's no way to know which of the two numbers is the "larger." But if that's all I had to go by I'd assume they meant 1" = 20 miles as a "larger" scale.
Used to run into the same thing with "precision" back when I taught science. In terms of distance measurement, the precision of a standard tape measure is 1/16" and the precision of a micrometer is (typically) 0.001". So when I would ask "Which instrument has a higher precision?" there was bound to be some confusion, even though the meaning of "higher" in that context is "better."
Regarding RobertB's quote about Arkansas, I know perfectly well what the writer meant, but even the first sentence is confusing:
Arkansas consistently ranks at the bottom of the nation’s poverty rankings.
That implies some kind of list that ranks the states from richest to poorest, but it could also be from poorest to richest. You get a little more context in the next sentence that suggests the former (richest to poorest), but if you didn't know much about Arkansas or poverty levels in other states you'd still be confused.
When I write I try to avoid those situations by first clearly defining the scale. If I was trying to convey that info about Arkansas, I'd either have a chart or table that shows the states ranked from richest to poorest and refer to it in the text. Lacking any graphic, I'd probably start by saying something like "If we rank the states from richest to poorest, Arkansas comes in at #48." From that point on you could refer to that scale unambiguously and use terms like "top" or "bottom."
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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