Many charities ask one of their beneficiaries to write a begging letter. It’s a good idea, as donors get the story from ‘the horse’s mouth’. Multiple Sclerosis Society has a letter doing the rounds by a 35 year-old woman whose marriage fell apart as a result of MS. She is extolling the virtues of her MS nurse. With the total ‘running cost’ of a nurse at £46,000 pa, the aim is to put more on the road. But I cannot figure out what is meant by the sentence “….every MS nurse supports on average 540 people….” I don’t know how many sufferers a nurse helps during the course of, say, a week, but, clearly, it is not 540. So, does the sentence mean that during the working career of a nurse (over ? years), it is that number of sufferers who are helped? Clarification is needed.

Figures are great for making a point (so long as they are accurate), but to quote figures which are meaningless to many readers is unlikely to achieve the desired result.

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