Thursday, February 27, 2020

Confusing terminology for time with that for distance









At her Speechwriter-Ghostwriter blog  on February 25, 2020 Jane Genova had a post titled Like Michael Bloomberg, anyone can be nailed to cross for language/behavior light years ago. Her first two sentences were:

“It’s not only dysfunctional relatives who keep bringing up what allegedly or really did happen light years ago. What we’re witnessing is that in politics there is no statute of limitations on what others claim had been said/done decades ago.”

But whatever Mr. Bloomberg did was on this planet, not in a galaxy far, far away. A light-year is an astronomical unit for distance, not for time. She should have said decades both times – in the title and text. It only takes a minute to check and not be guilty of bad writing.   

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