Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
FURTHER to Feedback's report on competition between the blue whale and the double-decker bus as metaphorical masses (14 February), we delve into our piling system and wonder, not without pride, whether colleagues on other publications are competing for a mention here. Or is there another explanation for the proliferation of articles that make truly bizarre comparisons, apparently to help readers grasp quantities?
Ralph Platten sends an article from the Aargauer Zeitung , a Swiss newspaper, reporting that the extinct shark Carcharocles megalodon had the mass of a blue whale. Fair enough. But in case that wasn't enough, it expands with rare specificity: "or about 61 Ferrari F12 Berlinetta". Is this a reference to the paper's owner's wheels, or what?
Marketing and arithmetic: not happy together. Tony Richey wonders how Domino's Pizza's offer of ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.
