Numbers

I find it fascinating how numbers are portrayed in the media, mostly news media. I’ve thought about it myself as I was writing, like, should I write “two hundred million”, or “200,000,000”? Each will have a different effect on the reader. Sometimes I think that the full nine-digit number will seem larger than the written number. I guess I’m not sure. Different for everyone, I suppose.

I was reading an article in the newspaper about Oakland and their struggles as a city. Toward the end they wrote, “The city has lost 15,000 residents since the pandemic began…” That’s a very small city or large town, depending on your point of view, that up and moved out of Oakland since the pandemic. Then, I looked back to the front of the article and reread, “…Oakland, a city of 420,000…” and wondered what percentage it was and what it would look like if that had been presented as such. %.035. So, “The city has lost about %.035 of residents since the pandemic began…” Different. But the same.