Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 79

The word order in the final paragraph below is suffering from inversion:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Mortgage rates […]’

I suppose it’s possible that buying only 41% might be cheaper than renting, but the Forbes article online clarifies matters: ‘At 3.9% […] buying is 41% cheaper than renting nationally.’*

The Telegraph’s headline, ‘Mortgage rates only need rise “0.69pc” to make renting cheaper’, is not best phrased, since it confuses the adjective only with the adverb only. The context shows that this only relates to the sum and thus should be placed next to it, not by the verb.

* It’s not apparent why the British media now tends to shun the traditional percentage sign in favour of the abbreviation pc.