July 2019 - Health Literacy Lab

$10 if you can read Pompano flood hazard map

Posted on July 29, 2019 by Public Linguist

I take emergency preparedness pretty seriously. Oh, I’m not one of those people who has a “go bag” in every room and has my dog walking around wearing a flotation device at the mention of flooding, but I do have impact windows and doors, plenty of batteries, enough food and water for 3 days, a transistor radio and a plan to communicate with family in an emergency.

I’m a newer resident of Pompano and felt good about getting the Pompano Beach Flood Hazard 2019 booklet in my mail last week. Good, I thought. I’ll review preparedness and locate areas at most flooding risk and where emergency shelters are located.

I turned to the page with the map that shows flooding hazards.

But A LITTLE HELP HERE!

Oh, you want me to enlarge it. Sure. How’s 200%.

So, my first problem is that the map is literally unreadable.

(And don’t bother going to the website and trying to enlarge it there, the clarity is still lost. )

Full disclosure – I have more than a passing interest in maps – especially emergency preparedness maps. Watching how Hurricane Katrina played out in 2005, and as a public health and safety communications expert, I turned much of my attention to how people look for, find and use ( or can’t use) risk & hazard information. Over the years I’ve worked with city, state and federal agencies to help them make maps and hazard information more readable and useable. Because, isn’t that what public safety officials want to achieve – a more informed public that is more prepared and ready to act?

After Katrina, we did a study in NYC using a similar Flood Map* in a pamphlet mailing. The map the city mailed was MUCH LARGER ( It’s now been updated to a Hurricane Zone Finder – much more readable). So size wasn’t the main problem.

But when we went asking average residents in Harlem what they thought of the map we were very dismayed! A majority of adults who hadn’t completed high school could not read and use the maps for basic information including identifying if they lived in a hurricane or flood evacuation zone. They also couldn’t locate where the nearest evacuation center was.

My point here is that we regularly see on TV, texts and social media, just how devastating hazards such as flooding are. People know extreme weather is happening more and more and they’re paying attention.

Let’s not disappoint. Let’s not misuse the attention the public has to learning more about hazards and being better prepared.

* Zarcadoolas, C., Boyer, J., A. Krishnaswami, A. & A. Rothenberg, A. (2007). How usable are current GIS maps: communicating emergency preparedness to vulnerable populations? Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

–>

Lawmakers Asking Stupid Unanswerable Questions of Mueller

Posted on July 25, 2019 by Public Linguist

More proof that today’s Mueller hearing was less about an unprepared Mueller and more about questioners who could benefits from a lesson or ten in “How To Avoid Asking Stupid, Unanswerable Questions”.

In addition to asking Mueller (oral) questions that required him to recall various numbers ( warrants, subpoenas, …), let’s look at a type of painfully tortured question that every linguist is well acquainted with – the multiply embedded sentence

An embedded sentence is a complex one where a clause (a group of words that includes a subject and a verb) is embedded (stuck) into a main sentence – .

a sort of syntactic interruptous.

But first a personal moment. I spent many wild and crazy nights with my fellow grad students in the linguistics lab fiddling with impossibly long and incomprehensible“multiply embedded” sentence.

Simple example of an embedded sentence:

My dog, who is a terrier mix, has lots of energy.

Easy breezy. Who has lots of energy – My dog.

But there are endless comprehension experiments, and linguistics lab past time games that have fun with sentences that are far more embedded and far more difficult to understand.

Example of a very complex and confusing multiply embedded sentence:

The hat, worn by the man, with the grey hair, crossing the street, that lead to the bus station on the other side of town, and often impassable between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00, had gone missing in early morning.

Basic rule of asking good questions – don’t use complex multiply embedded sentences.

Now let’s look at the linguistic acrobatics that defined some of the impossibly tortured questions posed to Robert Mueller today.

—————————

(Transcript from Washington Post )

RATCLIFFE: All right.

Now, your report — and today, you said that at all times, the special counsel team operated under, was guided by and followed Justice Department policies and principles. So which DOJ policy or principle sets forth a legal standard that an investigated person is not exonerated if their innocence from criminal conduct is not conclusively determined?

MUELLER: Can you repeat the last part of that question?

RATCLIFFE: Yeah.

Which DOJ policy or principle set forth a legal standard that an investigated person is not exonerated if their innocence from criminal conduct is not conclusively determined? Where does that language come from, Director? Where is the DOJ policy that says that?

Can — let me make it easier. Is…

MUELLER: May — can I — I’m sorry, go ahead.

RATCLIFFE: … can you give me an example other than Donald Trump, where the Justice Department determined that an investigated person was not exonerated…

And another

NADLER: Now, is it correct that if you concluded that the president committed the crime of obstruction, you could not publicly state that in your report or here today?

MUELLER: Can you repeat the question, sir?

NADLER: Is it correct that if you had concluded that the president committed the crime of obstruction, you could not publicly state that in your report or here today?

MUELLER: Well, I would say you could — the statement would be to — that you would not indict, and you would not indict because under the OLC opinion a sitting president — excuse me — cannot be indicted. It would be unconstitutional.

RATCLIFFE: All right.

MUELLER: Can you repeat the last part of that question?

RATCLIFFE: Yeah.

Can — let me make it easier. Is…

MUELLER: May — can I — I’m sorry, go ahead.

RATCLIFFE: … can you give me an example other than Donald Trump, where the Justice Department determined that an investigated person was not exonerated…

Mueller – Can you repeat that question?

Posted on July 24, 2019 by Public Linguist

–>

Can you repeat the question?

The closing gavel was barely struck at the Mueller hearings today when Fox News is characterizing Mueller as bumbling, not able to answer basic questions.

–>

“Mueller was frequently tripped up and forced to ask lawmakers to repeat their questions during his rapid-fire questioning on Capitol Hill, though he reportedly prepared at length for the hearings.”

And indeed, (though I haven’t worked all the way through the transcript yet), Mueller did ask his interrogators to repeat their questions quite a bit.

So what’s up?

Bumbling, unprepared former war hero and esteemed public servant?

I say no way. During the hearing my linguistics posse was texting back and forth about how many questioners ( Republican and Democratic), seemed to have not read “How To Avoid Asking Stupid, Unanswerable Questions”.

To look at the linguistic acrobatics that defined many impossibly tortured questions today – let’s start with the question that just throws a bunch of numbers at the wall and expects the answerer to follow along:

From hearing transcript today

COLLINS: Is it also true that you issued over 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records and 50 pin registers?

MUELLER: That went a little fast for me.

COLLINS: Your report states that your investigative team included 19 lawyers and approximately 40 FBI agents and analysts and accountants. Are those numbers accurate?

MUELLER: Could you repeat that, please.

Problem 1

Rattling off a series of numbers, and asking the respondent to keep in short term memory the exact numbers you just rattled off and retrieve numbers from the distant past is a simply wonderful example of a notoriously failed question.

Problem 2

It’s one thing if you’re reading a question – it’s visible in print in front of you for you to refer to.
It’s a horse of a very different color when you’re getting the questions through the air, in fleeting, ephemeral spoken language. In this case I marvel that on hearing the question repeated Robert Mueller answered clearly.

–>