The Universe of Discourse

Unnecessary imprecision
This article contains the following sentence:

McCain has won all of the state's 57 delegates, and the last primary before voters in more than 20 states head to the polls next Tuesday.

I'm not trying to pick on CTV here. A Google News search finds 42,000 instances of "more than 20", many of which could presumably be replaced with "26" or whatever. Well, I had originally written "most of which", but then I looked at some examples, and found that the situation is better than I thought it would be. Here are the first ten matches:

1. Australian Stocks Complete Worst Month in More Than 20 Years
2. It said the US air force committed more than 20 cases of aerial espionage by U-2 strategic espionage planes this month.
3. Farmland prices have climbed more than 20% over the past year in many Midwestern states...
4. "We have had record-breaking growth in our monthly shipments, as much as more than 20 percent improvements per month," said Christopher Larkins, President...
5. More than 20 people, including a district officer, were injured when two bombs exploded outside a stadium in the town yesterday...
6. By a vote of 14-7, the Senate Finance Committee last night voted to deliver $500 tax rebates to more than 20 million American senior citizens...
7. 9 killed, more than 20 injured in bus accident
8. While Tuesday's results may not lock up the nomination for either candidate, Democrats will have their say in more than 20 states...
9. Facing the potential anointment of his rival, John McCain, Romney has less than a week to convince voters in more than 20 states that...
10. More than 20 Aberdeen citizens qualified for elections as April ...

#2 may be legitimate, if the number of cases of aerial espionage is not known with certitude, or if the anonymous source really did say "more than 20". Similarly #4 is entirely off the hook since it is a quotation.

#3 may be legitimate if the price of farmland is uncertain and close to 20%. #5 is probably a loser. #7 is definitely a loser: it was the headline of an article that began "Nine people were killed and at least 22 injured when...". The headline could certainly have been "9 killed, 22 injured in bus accident".

#8 and #9 are losers, but they are the same example with which I began the article, so they don't count. #10 is a loser.

So I have, of eight examples (disregarding #8 and #9) three certain or near-certain failures (#5, #7, and #10), one certain non-failure (#4), and four cases to which I am willing to extend the benefit of the doubt. This is not as bad as I feared. I like when things turn out better than I thought they would.

But I really wonder what is going on with all these instances of "more than 20 states". Is it just sloppy writing? Or is there some benefit that I am failing to appreciate?

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