This sort of article drives me crazy. It isn't just the Bulletin, but all the news outlets.

BARNES & NOBLE SEES 9% RISE IN EARNINGS.

Barnes&Noble Inc., the largest U.S. bookseller, said Thursday its second-quarter earnings rose 9 percent, boosted by sales of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." The company also said it expects a loss in the third quarter but increased its yearly guidance to reflect tax benefits and lower-than-expected costs for closing a distribution center. The company's shares rose 90 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $35.*2 Thursday. The stock has traded between $30.01 and $43.80 during the past 52 weeks. Profit for the quarter ended Aug. 4 rose to $18.1 million, or 26 cents per share, from $16.6 million, or 24 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Italics are mine.

How to read this? I know that the C.E.O. had announced in advance that they would lose money because of the Harry Potter discounting. (For all intents and purposes, they -- along with Amazon, Walmart, Costgo, and Borders among others sold millions and millions of books for near cost, or even below.)

So what the hell is the term earnings mean? I suspect it means sales, which has a different connotation altogether.

Then they talk about a loss -- but hey, it didn't cost as much to close a center as we thought and besides we can write it all off in our taxes....

My accountant always laughs when I talk about writing off losses in my taxes. "You either earn a profit or you don't....."

And finally, they are back to talk of profits in the last part of the paragraph. Again, I know from my store that there are "Gross" profits -- that is, the money you've earned from sales before you subtract costs, and "Net" profits which are what are leftover after all bills are paid. I have to assume the profits they are talking about at the end are the "Gross."

Very unclear, and seemed designed to mislead the unwary.