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Great news this morning. The unemployment rate fell to 4.5%, which means that fewer people as a fraction of the workforce are without jobs. The headline from the Wall Street Journal?

Jobless Rate Slips to 4.5%

To "slip" is bad. A "slip" is a fall or decline in which to fall or decline is bad. "Uh oh, doctor, the patient's white count has slipped!" When a number falls or declines and that fall or decline is good, on the other hand, we don't say "slipped." We find some other term. "Thank God, doctor, the size of that tumor has been reduced." But not if we reflexively have bad news on the tip of our tongue.

Update... Reader Dan Dean adds,

That same infectious negativity can be found over at the AP (surprise!). The key to their sentiment can be found in that doozy of an opening:

?The nation's unemployment rate dipped to 4.5 percent in February even as big losses of construction and factory jobs restrained overall payroll growth.?

Can?t let a little good about the economy seep out without first tempering it a the harsh reality according to the AP. Also note their third line

?The slight decline in the politically prominent jobless rate, from 4.6 percent in January, came as hundreds of thousand of people left the work force, a development that economists also believe was related to the bad weather in February that made it difficult to get out and look for jobs.?

The decline can only be called ?slight,? but were it to jump say, .1 percent, you can be sure the lede would read ?Unemployment surges.?

Why, it?s almost as if they begrudged this economy for doing so well under a Republican administration...

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