The existence of multiple sets of units is the culprit. A few days ago I encountered ". . . and the bank raiders made off with £5000" in the on-line version of a British newspaper, only to find ". . . and the bank robbers made off with $8350" in an American newspaper the next day.
Some helpful press-association editor had translated 'raiders' as 'robbers' and replaced £5000 with its converted dollar equivalent, $8350, thus introducing a spurious note of precision and a suggestion that the raiders/robbers had made off with American greenbacks instead of the Bank of England notes that they almost certainly stole. Such officious efforts on behalf of the subliterate are almost always misguided. They introduce real confusions in attempting to dissipate notional ones. A crusade to eliminate them would, however, be at least equally misguided. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
