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How would you read/comprehend this sentence (yes, it's political) (1 Viewer)

matttyl

matttyl

Footballguy
Help with a disagreement. 

Facebook "friend" posted/shared a political post with a sentence and a picture.  The picture is a map of the US with the states outlined - most states in blue, 7 states aren't (Cali, Texas, Florida, New York, Penn, Ohio, Illinois).  Large red dot over LA area in California.

Sentence reads "The states in blue have a smaller population than Los Angeles."

I called them out saying "Huh? LA has a population of 4m, Virginia is over twice that and Michigan is larger still."

Response was "The population of LA county not just the "city" is over 10.1 million The population of the State of Virginia is over 8.5 million Population of the state of Michigan is over 9.9 million So yes, the above is a correct statement."......followed by a bit of snark.

Apparently I misread the sentence in two different ways.  I assumed it meant LA city, not county; and I assumed it meant that the states together have a smaller population, not that each state individually has a smaller population."  How did you read the sentence?  Fair statement or no?

 
matttyl said:
Sentence reads "The states in blue have a smaller population than Los Angeles."
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I disagree with most of the other people here.  I read this as "These states [collectively] have a smaller population than Los Angeles."  And I always just assume that when people refer to major cities, they mean their general metropolitan area unless there's some reason to assume otherwise.  

 
matttyl said:
Help with a disagreement. 

Facebook "friend" posted/shared a political post with a sentence and a picture.  The picture is a map of the US with the states outlined - most states in blue, 7 states aren't (Cali, Texas, Florida, New York, Penn, Ohio, Illinois).  Large red dot over LA area in California.

Sentence reads "The states in blue have a smaller population than Los Angeles."

I called them out saying "Huh? LA has a population of 4m, Virginia is over twice that and Michigan is larger still."

Response was "The population of LA county not just the "city" is over 10.1 million The population of the State of Virginia is over 8.5 million Population of the state of Michigan is over 9.9 million So yes, the above is a correct statement."......followed by a bit of snark.

Apparently I misread the sentence in two different ways.  I assumed it meant LA city, not county; and I assumed it meant that the states together have a smaller population, not that each state individually has a smaller population."  How did you read the sentence?  Fair statement or no?
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I read it as greater L.A. (County plus) being greater than all 43 states combined.

 
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matttyl said:
It was an electoral college post.  LA (county) has more power than these states type things.
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Ah. Yes, the delicious argument that Californians, who aren't real Americans like those of us in Small Red State, would have their votes count as much as everyone else's should we forego the EC and the founders never meant for any of that silliness to happen.

 
First, I would have assumed that "Los Angeles" meant "Los Angeles metro area", which is roughly 12-19 million, depending on how the area is defined.

Second, I would have interpreted "the states in blue" to mean, "the combined states in blue". Otherwise, the person should have said, "Each of the states in blue".

 
I assumed states individually because it’s clearly a ridiculous statement if you combine the states no matter what you’re assuming is the definition of LA is. 

I assumed city at first but then would quickly change my assumption to metro area based on the context, since you accurately pointed out the statement is ridiculous if you assume city. 

In no way would I assume county because people usually say “county” when they mean county. 

 
IvanKaramazov said:
I disagree with most of the other people here.  I read this as "These states [collectively] have a smaller population than Los Angeles."  And I always just assume that when people refer to major cities, they mean their general metropolitan area unless there's some reason to assume otherwise.  
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dgreen said:
I assumed states individually because it’s clearly a ridiculous statement if you combine the states no matter what you’re assuming is the definition of LA is. 

I assumed city at first but then would quickly change my assumption to metro area based on the context, since you accurately pointed out the statement is ridiculous if you assume city. 

In no way would I assume county because people usually say “county” when they mean county. 
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co-sign

 
Exact city boundaries are more arbitrary and less meaningful, IMO, than the associated metropolitan area. The Los Angeles metropolitan area is around 13.3 million strong according to Wikipedia. (I definitely wouldn't have assumed he meant county.)

From context, I think the blue states combined makes the most purely semantic sense ... although its obvious wrongness makes each state individually the better interpretation.

 
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Maurile Tremblay said:
Exact city boundaries are more arbitrary and less meaningful, IMO, than the associated metropolitan area. The Los Angeles metropolitan area is around 13.3 million strong according to Wikipedia. (I definitely wouldn't have assumed he meant county.)

From context, I think the blue states combined makes the most purely semantic sense ... although its obvious wrongness makes each state individually the better interpretation.
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That's how I read it, and that's how I think grammatically it should be read.  When you phrase it "the states in blue" you're already combining them in my mind. 

Also, yes, it was a post about the electoral college - but last I checked the LA (city, area, or county) doesn't have any electoral votes of it's own.  This was just a question about the wording of a politically charged sentence. 

 
I think when you name a specific city and then mention its population, you need to specify whether you're talking about just the city or the metro area. I live in South Florida. The city of Miami is actually fairly tiny (pop: 463K); when most people say "Miami" they really mean Dade County (2.7M). However, the official "metropolitan area" includes both Broward and Palm Beach counties (total pop: 6.1M)

So if you don't specify, there's no way to know for sure what you mean. In your friend's case, it sounds like he was trying to make the point that our largest cities have bigger populations than entire states, which is true. No idea what the broader significance of that fact is, though.

 
Long Ball Larry said:
and how is this political?
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My guess: Either the friend was a liberal arguing that LA's votes are important and shouldn't simply be "thrown away" as they are with the Electoral College, or that the friend was a conservative arguing it would be unfair if LA was allowed to "cancel out" entire states such as Virginia.

 
I can understand the possible original context.  Not sure why that means it should go in the PSF, since it is just about the syntax.

no big deal.

 
zftcg said:
My guess: Either the friend was a liberal arguing that LA's votes are important and shouldn't simply be "thrown away" as they are with the Electoral College, or that the friend was a conservative arguing it would be unfair if LA was allowed to "cancel out" entire states such as Virginia.
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It's the latter.  I just read it as making the claim that LA was canceling out 43 states, as I think grammatically speaking that's exactly what it says.

 
matttyl said:
It's the latter.  I just read it as making the claim that LA was canceling out 43 states, as I think grammatically speaking that's exactly what it says.
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Yeah, I figured the latter was more likely. Tell your friend it's a dumb argument even if phrased correctly. Yes, votes for one side "cancel out" votes for another side. That is literally how elections work. The onus should be on people to explain why votes from LA should count less than those from other parts of the country.

 
LA county?   No, I think they meant LA Metro Area which has a population close to 13 million.   Each state is probably the best interpretation.   If they meant all the states together they should have stated in total or something.  

 
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