“[The news media] should not subtract from the public’s understanding. Yet subtract they nowadays do with endless headlines and talk about ‘record’ oil and gasoline prices. For example, a recent headline in the Financial Times proclaimed: ‘New York investors take flight after price of oil hits record high.’ But the story’s fifth paragraph read: ‘West Texas Intermediate for September delivery settled $1.83 higher at $64.90 a barrel – a new nominal (see Word to the Wise, below) record …’ The real meaning of the word ‘nominal’ is: ‘The headline you just read is rubbish.’ As was the next day’s page-one headline – ‘Oil price hits $66 for a fourth record of the week’ – which was nullified by the story’s first words: ‘Oil prices yesterday broke their fourth consecutive nominal record for the week …’
“For the price of oil – not in nominal dollars but real, inflation-adjusted dollars – to surpass the record set in January 1981, it would have to be $86.72 per barrel.”
- George F. Will , writing in Newsweek
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