Grammar Moses: Statistics gone wild

It was Mark Twain who popularized the phrase: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

"Popularized," I write, because he didn't coin it. But more on that later.

Politicians embrace polls ... until they don't. Pitchmen quote statistics to support their products. They might stress great highway mileage but neglect to tell you that beast on four tires gets 8 mpg in the city. When something is 90 percent fat-free, it's 10 percent fat.

Statistics are used to sell people on ideas.

Responsible journalists use statistics all the time, but we try to add a layer of context so you can judge the importance of whatever measure is being discussed. We take great pains to ensure the numbers we use every day illuminate rather than lead you to false conclusions.

Let's face it: We are a stat happy society. Journalists use them often.

Here are a couple examples of when stats go wrong: I was watching the grisly (I was tempted to write grizzly) aftermath of the Bears' home opener on ESPN's "SportsCenter" Tuesday morning when up popped a statistic: This is the first 2-0 start for the Eagles since 2014.

Holy smokes! Can you believe it?

When people say the 2016 Cubs could be the first since 1908 to win a World Series, they're saying something about the great span of time - lifetimes in this case - of frustration between then and now.

When people say this is the first time since 2014 the Eagles have started 2-0, the implication is much greater than the payoff. All it means is the Eagles simply didn't start off last season as well as this season. Cue the sound of a deflating balloon.

Another example of how stat-happy we are is the Magic Number in baseball, that combination of wins and losses that counts down to a result. In this case, the countdown was to the Cubs winning the NL Central.

We breathlessly counted down the Cubs' Magic Number each day until last Thursday when the Cubs lost to the Brewers AND later the Cardinals lost to the Giants, a late-night combination that squelched the champagne-soaked celebration I'd hoped for on Page 1 the next day.

Reader Virginia Fullerton of Hoffman Estates mailed me our Page 1 "Magic Number 0" photo to complain about the caption, which read, in part: "It was the Cardinals' loss on the West Coast that gave the Cubs the National League Central title Thursday."

She attached a sticky note that reads: "Hey - Nobody GAVE them anything. They EARNED it."

I could pick nits about the Magic Number and how that works, but in the end Virginia is absolutely right. The Cubs earned their National League Central title on their own.

Statistics like a Magic Number shouldn't get in the way of that.

So, back to Mark Twain. He did write the "lies, damned lies and statistics" line in his autobiography, but he attributed it to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

The mystery doesn't end there. Apparently the origin of that quotation is a matter of unending debate among literary historians and even mathematicians. A dozen people have been cited - with varying degrees of uncertainty - as its progenitor, including one of Disraeli's major political opponents.

Middling, madding

Two words we apparently don't have a good grasp on are "middling" and "madding."

And they're used almost exclusively in two phrases: "fair to middling" and "the madding crowd."

But like many phrases one hears but rarely sees and doesn't understand, I usually hear them uttered as "fair to midland" and "the maddening crowd."

"Middling" means average. "Madding" means frenzied.

I'll grant you that a madding crowd can be maddening, but now you know the difference.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/Managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line.