Recently I was talking a doctor about something and he said "between 30 and 40 percent of people will outgrow this allergy..." Just to confirm, later I asked "So, there is about a 1 in 3 chance of outgrowing this?" The doc looked at me like I was crazy and said "No - maybe more like a 1 in 4 chance!"
When I was in AP US history many, many moons ago, the teacher asked the class "What's the approximate current population in the US?" I quickly answered "Around a quarter of a billion." He looked at me like I was crazy and said "Ahem, the population is around 260 million..."
I suspect that none of these examples would have happened if it had been a subject-verb disagreement or pronoun antecedent issue. So, I have started a new blog to begin documenting number and science errors that slip through in the media just so I don't have to carrying it around all bottled up inside. I wanted to name it "two cultures" in honor of CP Snow, but that blog name was taken. So, then I though "mediacrity", but that was taken as well! So, I have settled on "mediacisms". Feel free to email a link to something you notice and I will blog it if I have time!
Actually, what the doctor said in response to your confirmation of "1 in 3", to indicate your craziness, was, "Well, I wouldn't say that!" Your paraphrase using the single word "No" certainly has the same meaning, but it eliminates the "best" part of his response - the fact that he said he "wouldn't say that", but he DID say that!!
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