Which way is down?

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Fri Jul 11, 2003 10:18 am

From NYT: The school also reported that dropout figures had plummeted 92 percent, to 0.3 percent from 4.1 percent.*Is it just me, or would this sentence be clearer if it read ". . . from 4.1% to 0.3%" rather than vice versa?

tim · **Posted:** Fri Jul 11, 2003 1:58 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by ADKbrown:
From NYT: The school also reported that dropout figures had plummeted 92 percent, to 0.3 percent from 4.1 percent.*Is it just me, or would this sentence be clearer if it read ". . . from 4.1% to 0.3%" rather than vice versa?<hr></blockquote>Maybe, but I think it would have been clearer and more meaningful to give us the actual number of students, not percentages. If we're talking about a small school, that percentage rate is nice but not necessarily impressive.

ramblerdan · **Posted:** Fri Jul 11, 2003 2:48 pm

AFAIK, NYT style is still to say "to...from," as in the favorite example, "to Eternity from Here."

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Fri Jul 11, 2003 4:35 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by ramblerdan:
AFAIK, NYT style is still to say "to...from," as in the favorite example, "to Eternity from Here."<hr></blockquote>Is that their official style? That's ridiculous.

KfitzR · **Posted:** Tue Jul 15, 2003 10:56 am

I always had to -- from drilled into me, because from A to B can sound like a range, rather than a shift.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Tue Jul 15, 2003 11:23 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by KfitzR:
I always had to -- from drilled into me, because from A to B can sound like a range, rather than a shift.<hr></blockquote>Never heard that one before. I've never been confused by the "from ... to" construction. Possibly the only person who ever was confused by it was the author of that rule.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Tue Jul 15, 2003 4:28 pm

"From ... to" begins at the beginning and ends at the end. Makes sense to me.

Bolder1 · **Posted:** Tue Jul 15, 2003 9:44 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by ADKbrown:
Is that their official style? That's ridiculous.<hr></blockquote>
That is indeed our style, to avoid leading readers down the primrose path of thinking we're about to expose them to a range...makes sense when you think about it a bit.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Tue Jul 15, 2003 9:51 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bolder1:
That is indeed our style, to avoid leading readers down the primrose path of thinking we're about to expose them to a range...makes sense when you think about it a bit.<hr></blockquote>does this assume that "from" might lead readers to expect a range? i still don't get it.

dmfugitive · **Posted:** Tue Jul 15, 2003 10:57 pm

does this assume that "from" might lead readers to expect a range? i still don't get it. Take a sentence like:
"New York bus and subway fares increased from $1.50 to $2."
I think most people would understand that this means fares went up 50 cents, which they did.
But some might take it to mean the amount of the increase was in the range of $1.50 to $2 ... Some fares went up $1.50, some went up $1.75 or $1.85, others went up $2.That said, there are still better ways to avoid this kind of confusion without a style rule requiring everything to be written bass-ackwards. But what the fock do I know.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Tue Jul 15, 2003 11:24 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by dmfugitive:
That said, there are still better ways to avoid this kind of confusion without a style rule requiring everything to be written bass-ackwards.
<hr></blockquote>thanks for the explanation and excellent suggestion.[ July 16, 2003: Message edited by: Wayne Countryman ]

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Wed Jul 16, 2003 9:24 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bolder1:

That is indeed our style, to avoid leading readers down the primrose path of thinking we're about to expose them to a range...makes sense when you think about it a bit.<hr></blockquote>I don't imagine there would be too many instances where confusion would arise--not enough to justify a style rule that often leads to awkward English with no gain in clarity. In the example that I cited, I see no reason to invert the natural order of spoken English. (As Wayne pointed out, there is a logic to it, too.)

bwalsh · **Posted:** Wed Jul 16, 2003 11:52 am

I don't like "to ... from," but it's Washington Post style, too. It was originally explained to me that it was borrowed from a Wall Street Journal practice.I've always thought the rationale was that the current number is the more important detail. Newspaper writing has a get-to-the-point mentality that is good in many respects but becomes a fetish at some point. I think "to ... from" is a product of the same "Hurry! Hurry! The reader is going to go away before you can finish the sentence!" fear that discourages beginning ledes with dependent clauses, no matter how silly it sounds to avoid such a thing.On the range issue, I put the onus on those writing about ranges to avoid the "from" when it sounds ridiculous. "A price of from $2 to $3" should be "A price of $2 to $3." "Of" and "from" do not make good neighbors.

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