What is the total of all income the person usually receives?

If you're raising this because of the census, I'd say the question asking people how they travelled to work today will be just as useless for providing planning data.

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Ian K said..
What is the total of all income the person usually receives?

It assumes that all the different incomes can be summed together ?

So, if I work for peanuts in the morning and bugger-all in the afternoon it assumes peanut + bugger-all = some quantifiable total ?

It doesn't define the timescale over which the income is received ?

It doesn't differentiate between LGTBIQ+ income and non-LGTIBQ+ income, so it will upset somebody ??

You don't know the answer yourself because you have 'people' to deal with that sort of vulgar query and so it should be directed to your butler / valet / housekeeper / other ?

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Ian K said..

What is wrong with this sentence?

What is the total of all income the person usually receives?

Argh, I know. FormulaNova and kiterboy haven't argued about the semantics of it for 27 pages yet ?

It's ugly.

My two Bob's worth. A "total" is definitive. "Usually" implies there may be variation.

So it's pretty ugly

I read it as "usually since Covid" so... zero!

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Carantoc said..

Ian K said..

What is wrong with this sentence?

What is the total of all income the person usually receives?

Argh, I know. FormulaNova and kiterboy haven't argued about the semantics of it for 27 pages yet ?

Well, you were sort of correct twice. I have outsourced my arguing on Seabreeze to an Indian outsourcing company. Much cheaper at 10% of the cost and they only need to do it three times, so overall a bargain. I hope kitertoy has done the same thing as it just makes sense.

Butlers? Who can afford more than one?

P.S. I think that Ian is hinting that meth income has dropped these last few months, so 'usually' is not specific enough.

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Harrow said..
If you're raising this because of the census,

I was raising it to give the grammar nazis some sport without offending any fellow seabreezers. Also wondering if anyone was using the same version of grammar compiler as I've got in my head.

My initial take was that they they wanted to know how much, in total, of the household income came my way each week after multiple trips to the spare change jar. I put down $150.

That can't be the answer I thought.

It took me a while to debug.

The problem is the definition of income. www.dictionary.com/browse/income
ie income is "money received" .

So replacing "income" in the sentence with "money received"

What is the total of all money received the person usually receives?

There you go. Why ask someone if they received something they have received?

So then my subconscious grammar compiler, doing its best, decides that the first instance of "money received" must be a global variable, ie. the income of the household, the census is household based after all, and that what the person receives in dribs and drabs from that lot is a local variable.

Good to see I'm not the only one. Curantoc has the same compiler and came to the same conclusion.

what they probably meant to ask was

What is this person's total income?

Wasn't the correct answer "about average"?

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Carantoc said..

Ian K said..

What is wrong with this sentence?

What is the total of all income the person usually receives?

Argh, I know. FormulaNova and kiterboy haven't argued about the semantics of it for 27 pages yet ?

Is it just me or did anyone else read this thread and think, wtf are you taking about?

Male or female

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bjw said..
Is it just me or did anyone else read this thread and think, wtf are you taking about?

Nup. I've got no idea what there taking about either

My issue with Census is having to complete it with what actually happens on that day. Surely that creates statistical issues- it should be completed on the basis of what the normal situation is.
They use the data to decide upon Govt resource allocation. So for the next 5(?) years they will be using data that says there is bugger all people up north in Aug (when normally there is a billion backpackers) or that Eucla or Ceduna has 4 times the population that it really does (normally 40people but increased border duties...) and so on.

So surely just this once it should have been "ignoring COVID, what is the normal situation at your location averaged since last Census"

Mark, I see your point, but pandemic stats could also be useful, especially if we're going to have more of them. as some predict. It could help to plan ahead much better.

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Mark _australia said..
.....They use the data to decide upon Govt resource allocation....

pfft, yeah right.

Government resource allocation is determined by how tight a margin the seat is currently held by.

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Carantoc said..

Mark _australia said..
.....They use the data to decide upon Govt resource allocation....

pfft, yeah right.

Government resource allocation is determined by how tight a margin the seat is currently held by.

As if, that is so last year, or even the year before (depending on when the scheme was assessed, and even if they had already been funded)

www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-26/sports-grants-scott-morrison-club-got-money-already-built/12001522

www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-26/how-north-sydney-council-won-a-$10m-pool-upgrade-grant/11998724