Timeline for Has "N times less" become commonplace?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1 at 7:15 | comment | added | Jim Newton | I completely disagree that "A is one fifth as fast as B" is awkward. It is 100% understandable to a native speaker, and hopefully to a non-native speaker with a B2/C1 level. Furthermore it is unambiguous. It clearly specifies a formula for computing A if you know B. | |
| Sep 6, 2021 at 8:48 | comment | added | Jim Newton | @Drazex, I would definitely say 50% more or 100% more or 200% more in a scientific discussion. It has a clear meaning. But despite all the claims to the contrary, 50% less (equivalently half less), 100% less (equivalently 1 time less) and 200% less (equivalently 2 times less) in a scientific article should mean what it means mathematically. However, not all people will interpret as such. If the goal is to be correct and understood, n times less should be avoided. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 10:09 | comment | added | Drazex | @JimNewton First, I think it's more common in British English, but we wouldn't say "twice less" in American English. Further, changes in percentages can be confusing at the best of times. Adding percentages into a discussion of "times less than" is a bit of a red herring, though, because we don't use percentages and "times" in the same statement. "It was 200% times less" would never be said, and so doesn't contribute to the answer to this question. That said, "percentage less" is usually subtractive, and so the entire statement would be very confusing, and require more details to explain. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:59 | history | edited | Drazex | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 464 characters in body
|
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:54 | comment | added | Jim Newton | @ Drazex, so what about "inflation is 200% less than it was in 2014", vs "inflation is twice less than what it was in 2014", vs "inflation is half less or 50% less than it was in 2014"? Or "inflation is 3 times less than in 2014"? | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:54 | comment | added | Drazex | @JimNewton That's a good point. I should clarify that the meaning of "less" to mean subtraction is weaker than the meaning of "times" to mean multiplication. By itself, "less" can mean subtraction, but when combined with "times" it never does. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:53 | comment | added | Zebrafish | @JimNewton But he could just counter and say that 10% less is the same as 90% of the original price, being a multiplication by 0.9. I'm just playing. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:52 | comment | added | Drazex | @JimNewton Well, at the risk of being pedantic, direction doesn't matter to speed, and "slow" refers to speed exclusively, so getting slower could not reverse direction, at most it would lead to a full stop. (Velocity is speed plus direction, while speed is the magnitude of velocity.) | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:51 | comment | added | Jim Newton | @Drazex, you say "Less" isn't used very often to have a subtractive meaning", but I would challenge you to consider the sentence: The prices are now 10% less than they were in 2014. In this case "less" clearly indicates subtraction. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:48 | comment | added | Jim Newton | In my mind 50% and 1 half are the same. So does twice mean the same as 200%. So twice slower to me means 200% slower. I.e., the same speed but in the other direction. I say "in my mind", because I know most people would disagree with me. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:44 | comment | added | Zebrafish | @WS2 I say this half jokingly, but we are still multiplying, instead of multiplying by 5 we multiply by the reciprocal of 5, which is 1/5, which is dividing by 5, as you said. I say half jokingly, because I doubt anybody actually consciously knows they're doing this. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:39 | comment | added | Drazex | @WS2 But we are considering multiplication. Multiplication and division are the same operation, just to a negative power. That is, dividing by five, and multiplying by one fifth, are identical operations. In English, we freely compare "negative" values. I don't have to say that this bus is "less long", I say it is "shorter". This is because it has a "larger value of 'short' ". In English, this makes perfect sense. Therefore, if the value of "short" is 5 times that of the value of "short" for the other bus, it is "five times shorter". This might not be true in French, but it is true in English. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:37 | comment | added | Jason Bassford | +1 Although it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, this is exactly how we use our language in informal conversation. If A is five times faster than B, then, in reverse, we say that "B is five times slower than A." People don't stop to think what that really means—they just accept it. Just as they understand that "I don't know nothing" means "I don't know anything." It's only in formal writing or speech where more precision is required. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:33 | comment | added | WS2 | @Drazex I'm not convinced that people who use the formulation are necessarily understanding it in that way. What is wrong is the use of the word "times" - because we are not considering multiplication but division. So a better expression would be "Bus A is five divisors smaller than bus B". Maths teachers would do the world a favour by popularising such an idiom. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:23 | comment | added | Zebrafish | @WS2 The only "near" ambiguity I can see is when you say Bus A is 4 times bigger than Bus B. Either Bus A is 400% the size of Bus B, or Bus A is 500% the size of Bus B. The second conclusion would only make sense if "Bus A is one time bigger than Bus B" would be comprehensible to anyone, then Bus A might be 200% the size of Bus B. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:18 | comment | added | Drazex | Yes, "A is 5 times less than B" is "A = B/5". English is not a fundamentally mathematical thing. Comparisons can be made in any arbitrary direction. "Canada is colder than Mexico." is just as valid a statement as "Morocco is hotter than Norway." This is the exact same concept, just without a number. Therefore you can use the same sorts of multipliers. "Three times shorter" is the same as "Three times less tall" is the same as "one third as tall", though the first or third are much more natural than the middle choice. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:18 | comment | added | Zebrafish | @WS2 Drazex has already made the point that in sciences and math the less so called ambiguous version is used. And I agree it should be maintained that way. But from my experience people have no trouble understanding Bus A is 5 times smaller than Bus B. What are the other possible conclusions to draw other than Bus A is one fifth the size of Bus B? | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 9:12 | comment | added | WS2 | So are you arguing that "A is 5 times less than B" means "A = B/5"? I would not agree with you that it is "easily understood". "Times slower than, times less than, or times fewer than are in my view meaningless formulations - and their use should be discouraged, by among others, maths teachers. It is extremely seldom that I downvote an answer (or a question) but on this occasion I am moved to do so. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 8:51 | history | answered | Drazex | CC BY-SA 4.0 |