“Eight out of ten owners said…” is actually fewer than 84.09%, but I’d suggest it gets the point over more strongly.
I was reminded recently of a long-standing bugbear of mine when I saw the results of a poll showing the winning choice getting 41.03% of the response. This was a poll of a small group of people (39, to be precise). The second choice apparently received 17.95%.
What on earth was the point of all that precision? Not only would it be clearer to drop the two decimal places, it might even be more impactful to quote the actual numbers behind each option, rather than a percentage.
Of course there are times when decimal places are important. If it’s 99.9%, it might be critical that we don’t round it up to 100%. If it’s 49.8% vs 50.2%, the decimal place shows the tight result better. But in most other circumstances, simpler numbers make for greater clarity.
“Eight out of ten owners said…” is actually fewer than 84.09%, but I’d suggest it makes the claim stronger. We should all remember that when preparing our next Powerpoint slides.