Well, this may be so, however Colibri seems to think that you are incorrect.
And I happen to think that he’s right.
Maybe the OP is the Vitruvian Man.
What about half a Yahoo over a Yahoo?
Yes, Colibri certainly agrees with you.
:rolleyes:
As has been said, yes, you probably could use 8:8 as the ratio you have, but it’s misleading. Also technically accurate would be 5:5 or 7:7, so why don’t you want to use those? And there’s your answer as to why it’s misleading.
I think the answer may be here.
Copperwindow, I have no idea why you think I would consider Exapno to be wrong, since he said much the same as I did. If I am correct, he is also correct.
If you are talking specifically about arms and legs, a 2:2 ratio is meaningful. An 8:8 ratio, while mathematically equivalent, means something different linguistically, and is meaningless in that context. So stating a ratio of arms to legs as 8:8 is incorrect.
I disagree with this assessment. Linguistically, the question asks about a ratio and not a count. If you believe that a ratio is linguistically bound to the count of the objects being compared, then it would also be incorrect to state:
“The ratio of women to men in India is approximately 930 women to 1000 men.”
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The actual count of women and men in India is obviously much higher than 930 and 1000, nor is this a fully simplified fraction. However, the above statement doesn’t seem misleading because we are accustomed to speaking about populations using ratios.
The real reason that the 8 arms to 8 legs ratio seems misleading is simply that there is not currently any reason to discuss the ratio using any other numbers than the actual count of the arms and legs in question. However, this does not make the statement incorrect, but merely confusing. One could argue that choosing to be confusing when a clearer wording is readily available is being incorrect (the argument discussed earlier about getting points taken off on a homework assignment for choosing to use 8/8 instead of 1/1), but correctness and clarity are different characteristics.
I think the disagreement mainly arises in that we are using different evaluations of what constitutes “incorrect.” In my book, I would say that the statement is not merely confusing or unclear, but incorrect since there is no logical reason to use it. It is rather like being asked what color a black dog is, and saying “no color.” While this is technically correct, unless one is trying to illustrate a point about optics there is no reason to state it that way. In my view this is not merely unclear, it is incorrect in normal parlance. YMMV, for different values of “incorrect.”
How can a statement be both technically correct and also be incorrect? Why not just use a different qualifier to express your opinion about the lack of apparent reason used for an unneccarily bemuddling statement? It seems as though you have a punitive mentality with regards to the statement, as though it should not be given any label which could be construed as “positive”, since it seems clear that it sought to be intentionally misleading. I think it is important to separate one’s overall appreciation of any entity which is being evaluated (be it a viewpoint, work of art, statement, etc.) from any particular characteristic which comprises that overall appreciation.
copperwindow, you haven’t sufficiently explained where you got the number eight from. I’m confused why you wouldn’t just say 2:2 (two arms : two legs) or reduce that to 1:1.
What’s up with that? Care to offer some context, because now you’re squabbling over something very petty, unconventional and rather moot. You baffle me.
How does the 17/23 correlation fit into this?
Like I say, YMMV. In my view, the statement is incorrect. If you want to construe that as being “punitive,” all I can do is shrug.
I would claim that a ratio given as A:B has two interpretations in our language, depending on whether the ratio is reduced or not.
Reduced: relative values are indicated, and one should not necessarily ascribe any meaning to the actual values A and B.
Not reduced: relative value are indicated, and one can take the values A and B as representing the actual underlying quantities.
If I give the ratio of AFC to NFC teams in the NFL, I could say it in two ways:
(a) 1:1, which tells you that the two conferences have the same number of teams.
(b) 16:16, which tells you that the two conferences have the same number of teams, and that that number is 16.
Anything else would be as incorrect as saying: “I run jump.” While you could say “I run jump”, and I would have a guess as to what you might be talking about, it just isn’t an English sentence even by extreme descriptionist standards.
For the ratios (as with anything), one can deviate from the above pattern if one establishes this with context. But on its own, “I have an 8:8 arms:legs ratio” is broken.
As with many language things, though, this can be reduced to a prescriptionist versus descriptionist difference. A prescriptionist might well claim that it should be okay to say “8:8”, but a descriptionist would point out that that’s beside the point since it isn’t how people actually use the language.
Or eight, for every eight.