Educating editors
Sir: Inspired by the AAAA (Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostro- phe), I shall be forming the AAIULCD, which, though not quite as mellisonant, is equally necessary. The most recent target of my organisation would be you, the edi- tor, for passing such a headline as 'Lowest common denominator'.
The Association for the Annihilation of the Inaccurate Use of the Lowest Common Denominator would seek to educate jour- nalists in the simple mathematics behind the concept of the lowest common denomi- nator: i.e. the lowest common multiple (LCM) of the denominators under consid- eration.
Numerically, the LCM is the smallest number which embraces all of the numbers in question: it is at least as large as the largest and is frequently larger. For exam- ple, the LCM of 2, 3 and 59 is 2 x 3 x 59 = 354, a number which far outstrips the hum- ble 2 and 3 of this selection. I suspect that journalists are really basing their analogy on the highest common factor, which, in this case, would be 1.
However, I hope that the AAIULCD will not be too successful: success would deny me the simple pleasures of pouncing glee- fully on every new instance of the misuse of LCD and sounding off complacently about the sloppy thinking of modern journalists. Jean Pailing
9 Adcock Walk, Orpington, Kent
Previous page
