[albert_e]

> One out of every two Danes has seen the documentary.

Why not simpler English -- "half of the country has watched it"

Also pendatic aside -- i think "every two danes" is a stretch -- i am sure we can find many instances of "two danes" where both has watched it. Or neither. Some are being born as we speak (write).

[daedrdev]

One out of every two X is an extremely common and perfectly reasonable phrase in english, meaning your complaint about finding 2 Danes who haven't watched it is nonsensical as we know they mean on average.

[albert_e]

I know this format is common usage but don't see it commonly used to represent this fraction-- 50% or half -- where this construct seems needlessly long or formal.

The second part was just playful aside -- not serious. Ofcourse that didn't come through. I know there is a common sensical read that all readers will apply to it and it will not be misinterpreted. I thought this being HN people will find it amusing to treat it as a logical statement and parse.

[dfawcus]

> Why not simpler English -- "half of the country has watched it"

I guess as it was aimed at a British audience, and that is not an uncommon way for us to form such sentences.

If you hadn't mentioned it, I'd not even have noticed it, simply parsing it as "half".

[danso]

If this were social media, at least 10 people including me would be replying with the Major Hellstrom Sees Three Fingers meme.

[thwarted]

Why say "four out of five dentists" instead of "80% of dentists"?

[albert_e]

Seems a bit needlessly long when employed for a concept more mundanely called "half". A lay person uses half more often, I would imagine.

For all other fractions, I don't feel it is that odd to use X out of Y construct.

[dfawcus]

Because that is just what we do.

Expressing things as percentages was a late arrival; when until the mid 70s folks had to be able to cope with, and mentally manipulate vulgar fractions.

[absolutelastone]

"four out of five" has the same number of syllables as "80%". "Three out of four" has even fewer syllables than 75%, for that matter. So I can see why those stuck around. Meanwhile "one out of two" is wordier than just "half". Are you saying British people still use it in such an inefficient case anyway?

[dfawcus]

The media does when writing such things up, stylistic choices.

It is also likely to be "one in two" rather than "one out of two", in speech "half", "three quarters", "seven eighths" etc is more likely.