Blood alcohol content
This recently updated thread from Testy Copy Editors is worth a read. It points out a couple of facts about blood alcohol content that are often wrong.
First, it's not a percentage. There's some math involved here that you can get at TCE, but it comes down to this: The measurement is of grams (of alcohol) per deciliter (of blood), and that doesn't work out to be a percentage. (Blood and alcohol each have a different densities from water.)
Second, it's a measurement of the alcohol content of the blood. A hyphen between blood and alcohol isn't necessary.
posted by Nicole @ 2:15 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Perhaps too subtle for newspaper work, but the hyphen suddenly becomes correct when "content" or an equivalent isn't the noun -- "based on the blood-alcohol finding," for instance.
Nothing is too subtle for newspaper work! Mwahahah.
The next question is: Should we include the unit label every time we report a blood alcohol content, as in “a blood alcohol content of 0.08 grams of alcohol per deciliter of blood”? I think not. For the most part, "a blood alcohol content of 0.08" will do. It’s rather like when we report a batting average: “Damon was hitting .302 coming into the game,” not “302 hits per 1,000 at-bats.” (The analogy isn’t perfect, but I think the precedent is useful.)
... And shouldn't we make it "concentration" instead of "content"?
"Concentration" seems to make more sense literally.
Then again, "content" and "level" aren't wrong, and the idea here is generally understood.
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