Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I drove home from Chicago to Michigan yesterday afternoon, tuned to Chicago’s radio news stations for most of the drive. Commercials were a constant counterpoint to the music.

First, there was the Mercedes Benz commercial, claiming to be Number One in sales in Chicago. That didn’t seem so unreasonable, until I wondered how many Mercedes dealerships there could be within the city limits. After all, Mercedes are costly, so there couldn’t be too many dealerships in a given area without diluting the profit margins of all dealerships in the same area.

After dinner at home, I went online to research the number of dealerships within the city limits of Chicago. It was then I realized that the advertisement was meaningingless, since there was only one Mercedes dealership within the city limits; and it was the one sponsoring the commercial. I wondered how it could be number one without a number two or a number three.

I think the most accurate phrase the advertiser might have used is that this particular dealership is the only Mercedes dealer within the city. But, of course, that doesn’t make as dramatic a statement.

Another radio commercial said that a certain well-known cola had 50 percent less sugar. But it didn’t say less sugar than what? Fifty percent less sugar that its original beverage? Fifty percent less sugar than a competitor? Fifty percent less sugar than a sugar plantation? It may seem nit-picky, but comparisons need to tell us both sides of the equation. Otherwise, we devise the missing part on our own, and this often works in favor of the advertiser who wants us to believe it is number one, has less sugar, fewer carbs, more energy, greater resistance, brighter teeth, faster engines, better protection, and greater possibilities.

These phrases all beg the questions “Less than what?” or “More than what?” And if we don’t know, at least we might want to be more aware of fact that there is missing information. It could help us be more skeptical about advertising claims.

I mean more skeptical than we were before.