Tuesday, 15 September 2009

P.S

The Sun's coverage of the baby names story included this claim from journalist George Pascoe-Watson:

The name spelt as Mohammed has shot up 18 places over the last year to 16th.

Mohammed was indeed 16th in 2008.

But it was 17th in 2007.

That would be 'shooting up' one place over the last year then. Not 18.

Mohammed was 34th in 1998, so it has 'shot up' 18 places over ten years. Not one.

Indeed, the number of babies named Mohammed - of that exact spelling - actually went down (albeit by only one) between 2007 (3,424) and 2008 (3,423).

A deliberate error to increase the scare, or just sloppy journalism?
Posted by MacGuffin at 13:35
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2 comments:

  1. Duncan Stott15 September 2009 at 14:05

    Well if it was just sloppy, aint it funny that the errors never happen in the other direction... (i.e. they never accidentally under-report an increase in numbers related to Muslims or immigrants)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stan Moss15 September 2009 at 15:41

    Theresa/Teresa.
    Alistair/Alasdair.
    Isabelle/Isobel/Isabel.
    Suzanne/Susanne.
    Anne/Anna/Hannah.
    Christina/Christine.
    Marc/Marcus/Mark.
    Joanna/Joanne.
    Jane/Jayne.

    Have those daft idiots at the Daily Mail added up those 'logical' spelling varieties or did they just do it with Mohammed/Mohamed/Muhammed?

    ReplyDelete

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