3 ms·

If you added the word "Only" to the title, it would completely change the subtext.

junot 4y ago
Agreed. Is this figure supposed to be high? Seems like there's a good chance that 1 in 5 Biden voters now think it was the wrong decision and 1 in 5 Trump thought similarly after his years in office.
- NDizzle 4y ago
  Way more than 1 in 5 Biden voters, given the last two years...
  - jleyank 4y ago
    Guess they decided they look better in brown.
- beardyw 4y ago
  Any mistake is only for 4 years.
- jfengel 4y ago
  It's high given that the original referendum was so close. It was a rather large and irrevocable decision based on a bare majority. People may regret their choices in elections, but they can revisit them every few years. Brexit is, if not forever, at least for a very long time. Two mutually contradictory caveats: 1. The referendum itself was never intended to be serious. It was held because David Cameron thought it would fail, in order to shut up the anti-Europe wing of his party. He resigned over it. 2. Although the referendum was close, it was effectively affirmed by the elections in the wake of Cameron's resignation. It was still close, but they ended up with a majority for the party campaigning explicitly on a pro-Brexit platform. This adds up to a cautionary tale on referendums. A big question was put to the people -- even bigger than an election -- and a largish majority (not a bare majority) are unhappy about the result. In that sense, yes, 20% is a pretty big number. Not that it changes anything. It's much too late for that, and it doesn't tell us anything about the counterfactual where the referendum lost. But it's worth remembering going forward, both with respect to the EU and for national decision-making.
ranting-moth 4y ago
Isn't that a well known fact that you can generally change the meaning and/or subtext of everything by adding or subtracting a word?
sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
The original title sticks to the actual claim, and doesn't add subtext. You can interpret "one in five" in either direction. You can say 80% of Brexit voters are still fine with their vote, or you can say the 20% who have changed their minds would be enough to reverse the decision could the vote be held again now. So yeah, adding words does add subtext, but your phrasing of this seems to imply that there is existing subtext. What do you see, specifically?
- 543ge4q3 4y ago
  Choice of words is a component of subtext, as you hinted at yourself. Below I have hilighted the key action word, which is also an important choice when setting subtext. "One in 5 people now think" is a positive-sounding construction which lends more statstical weight to the result than an impartial examination of the numbers, and people who scan headlines are far from impartial. Other constructions are "4 in 5 still support...", or "80% still support", or "20% now think", which are all still mathematically neutral, but the subtext is different.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
    Is there a phrasing you think would be neutral that still references that data point? I'm struggling to figure out a neutral phrasing involving this data point. My reading of your response indicates that you see a temporal indicator ("now") or a delta indicator ("still" / "no longer") as both introducing bias. "One in five people think Brexit was the wrong decision" without anything clarifying significantly misrepresents the data. It seems your issue is actually with the data point being in the headline at all. Maybe the headline should be a dry thing like "A Brexit survey happened, read inside for details". I won't entirely disagree. But I think this is less about word choice than you think.
    - 543ge4q3 4y ago
      I think it was the book "How to lie with statistics" that dedicated a page or two to the perceived differences when "x%" is used vs "1 in x", depending on the actual value. I think that using "20% now think that..." would give a more accurate impression to someone scanning the headline.

Agreed. Is this figure supposed to be high? Seems like there's a good chance that 1 in 5 Biden voters now think it was the wrong decision and 1 in 5 Trump thought similarly after his years in office.

NDizzle 4y ago
Way more than 1 in 5 Biden voters, given the last two years...
- jleyank 4y ago
  Guess they decided they look better in brown.
beardyw 4y ago
Any mistake is only for 4 years.
jfengel 4y ago
It's high given that the original referendum was so close. It was a rather large and irrevocable decision based on a bare majority. People may regret their choices in elections, but they can revisit them every few years. Brexit is, if not forever, at least for a very long time. Two mutually contradictory caveats: 1. The referendum itself was never intended to be serious. It was held because David Cameron thought it would fail, in order to shut up the anti-Europe wing of his party. He resigned over it. 2. Although the referendum was close, it was effectively affirmed by the elections in the wake of Cameron's resignation. It was still close, but they ended up with a majority for the party campaigning explicitly on a pro-Brexit platform. This adds up to a cautionary tale on referendums. A big question was put to the people -- even bigger than an election -- and a largish majority (not a bare majority) are unhappy about the result. In that sense, yes, 20% is a pretty big number. Not that it changes anything. It's much too late for that, and it doesn't tell us anything about the counterfactual where the referendum lost. But it's worth remembering going forward, both with respect to the EU and for national decision-making.

ranting-moth 4y ago

Isn't that a well known fact that you can generally change the meaning and/or subtext of everything by adding or subtracting a word?

sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago

The original title sticks to the actual claim, and doesn't add subtext. You can interpret "one in five" in either direction. You can say 80% of Brexit voters are still fine with their vote, or you can say the 20% who have changed their minds would be enough to reverse the decision could the vote be held again now. So yeah, adding words does add subtext, but your phrasing of this seems to imply that there is existing subtext. What do you see, specifically?

543ge4q3 4y ago
Choice of words is a component of subtext, as you hinted at yourself. Below I have hilighted the key action word, which is also an important choice when setting subtext. "One in 5 people now think" is a positive-sounding construction which lends more statstical weight to the result than an impartial examination of the numbers, and people who scan headlines are far from impartial. Other constructions are "4 in 5 still support...", or "80% still support", or "20% now think", which are all still mathematically neutral, but the subtext is different.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
  Is there a phrasing you think would be neutral that still references that data point? I'm struggling to figure out a neutral phrasing involving this data point. My reading of your response indicates that you see a temporal indicator ("now") or a delta indicator ("still" / "no longer") as both introducing bias. "One in five people think Brexit was the wrong decision" without anything clarifying significantly misrepresents the data. It seems your issue is actually with the data point being in the headline at all. Maybe the headline should be a dry thing like "A Brexit survey happened, read inside for details". I won't entirely disagree. But I think this is less about word choice than you think.
  - 543ge4q3 4y ago
    I think it was the book "How to lie with statistics" that dedicated a page or two to the perceived differences when "x%" is used vs "1 in x", depending on the actual value. I think that using "20% now think that..." would give a more accurate impression to someone scanning the headline.