I've created this page to keep track of bad logic. Hopefully in a few years, I can use these when teaching logic to undergraduates. ;)
Not bad logic, just clumsy language
- "Practically every decade has a once-in-200-year flood somewhere in the UK"
- from How the heaviest rainfall happened, BBC News
- quoted by AlisonW on Twitter
- It's confusing because it feels like it's saying "Practically every decade X happens even though X only happens once every 200 years", when in fact it's saying that "once a decade some event X happens somewhere in the country that happens only every two hundred years". That is to say, in one decade, let's say Essex floods heavily, that might happen only every 200 years. The next decade, Suffolk floods heavily even that happens only every 200 years. Then the next decade, Norfolk has the worst flood in 200 years. In this case, for three decades, three different places that are somewhere in the UK have had a once-in-200-year flood, but the once-in-200-year limitation is regarding that area.