I guess my point may have been lost. There is no need to learn a new term. "1%" is read "one percent". "0.5%" is read "zero point five percent" or, shorthand, "point five percent".
How did we get from "zero point five percent", which is the literal value, to "one half of one percent", which imposes a cognitive load?
Or, better yet, why "one half of one percent" and not "half a percent"
It's like reading the number "1" as "one-hundredth of one hundred", or "10" as "one tenth of one hundred".
Question: Do they do the same in Europe? I must admit, I've been there tons of times but never paid attention to this (probably because I never watched enough TV while there). Of course, in Europe (and the rest of the world, as far as I know) it's "comma" not "point".
I can understand the use of basis points in some financial circles as a term of trade or convenient insider's unit. I don't understand it when used to communicate with the public. Go out there and ask a random sampling of people what a basis point is. I'll bet very few will say "0.01%", even if they own stocks.
How did we get from "zero point five percent", which is the literal value, to "one half of one percent", which imposes a cognitive load?
Or, better yet, why "one half of one percent" and not "half a percent"
It's like reading the number "1" as "one-hundredth of one hundred", or "10" as "one tenth of one hundred".
Question: Do they do the same in Europe? I must admit, I've been there tons of times but never paid attention to this (probably because I never watched enough TV while there). Of course, in Europe (and the rest of the world, as far as I know) it's "comma" not "point".
I can understand the use of basis points in some financial circles as a term of trade or convenient insider's unit. I don't understand it when used to communicate with the public. Go out there and ask a random sampling of people what a basis point is. I'll bet very few will say "0.01%", even if they own stocks.