Slight underestimate

[rubrick]

A headline from Google News, exactly as posted:

Fifty to 70 American Adults Say They Have Sleep Disorders

And I know about 10% of them personally. Weird.

Comments

[qaqaq]

Aside from the missing percent, I wonder what rule they're following to spell out "fifty" while using the digits for "70". Could they have some prohibition about starting a headline with a digit?

[rubrick]

Huh, hadn't even noticed that.

FWIW, perusal of the article reveals that it's actually a missing "million". But what's a half-dozen orders of magnitude among friends?

[tablesaw]

It's pretty standar in style guide that sentences cannot begin with numerals or lowercase letters, so probably yes.

Of course, the same rule usually requires that a matching number be spelled out as well, so there's some selective enforcement there.

[vito_excalibur]

Clearly, you are a contributing factor to other people's sleep disorders!