If you use the word “bellwether” be sure to spell it properly, i.e. not “bellweather”. It’s derived from the Middle English words belle, a bell, and wether, a castrated sheep or goat, and stems from the practice of putting a bell on the leader of a flock of sheep or goats. When you spell it the other way, it strongly suggests you don’t know what it means.
I saw this misspelling in an editorial on a major city newspaper’s editorial page today. Given that it was followed in rapid succession by the canard of comparative infant mortality statistics, the claim of subsidized health insurance as a moral imperative, a flat-out lie about how physicians at the Mayo Clinic are paid (they might have checked the Code of Medical Ethics), and the use of the word “overwhelming” when they apparently meant “daunting”, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Update
Damn. The very next editorial I read in the same newspaper has the same problems (spelling problems, misuse of words, non sequiturs, factual errors, logical failures). They really need to get better editorial writers.
Yeah, one non-sequitur after another!
Infant mortality statistics are extremely difficult to compare from one country to another, Jimbino, because they’re measured differently from country to country. For example, some countries don’t start reckoning infant mortality until after live birth. In the United States count what would be considered stillbirths elsewhere.
There’s also a strong correlation among maternal alcohol and drug use, low birth weight, and infant mortality. In that context our relatively high rates of alcohol and drug use bear some concern.
There are lots of other outcome comparisons that make better arguments than infant mortality. However, I wouldn’t ding infant mortality in the editorial as a non sequitur but as a logical failure.
IMO the best cross-comparison for healthcare reform is per capita cost. Surely we should be able to get better results, whatever our results are, for lower costs.
I don’t usually include life expectancy for a similar reason, Dave – it’s dependent on a number of factors outside of health care treatment.
Much better are survival metrics on various diseases and treatments stacked up against each other on a country-by-country basis.