Is the condition '[a value] reduces to [number]' fulfilled when the value reduces to less than the number?

Question

I am trying to deduce the nuances of the titular language for the purposes of a logic puzzle. To illustrate the specifics of the question, the following situation is provided.

Item A has a price of 40. Consider the following statement:

• When the price reduces to 30, I will buy the item.

The price of the item then reduces to 20. Interpreting the statement literally (and not trying to infer intent or implied meaning), according to the statement and situation provided, would the speaker buy the item?

As an alternative situation, consider the following: The temperature outside is 30. We then have the similar statement:

• When the temperature reduces to 15, I will go outside.

Due to some unrelated supernatural weather phenomenon, the temperature suddenly then reduces to −15. Would the speaker go outside? The purpose of this second example is to try to demonstrate the different uses of this (albeit unnatural) language: the answer to both questions must be the same, since otherwise the interpretation is not separate to the (presumed) intentions of the speaker.

Finally, to rephrase the question in the abstract, for a statement forming a condition on when a value 'reduces to' a number, is that condition fulfilled when the value reduces to a lesser number? In other words, is the condition "[X] reduces to [Y]" ([X] was a value greater than [Y], and now it is [less than] [Y]) linguistically distinct in those specifics from the imperative or descriptive statement "[X] reduces to [Y]" ([X] was a value greater than [Y], and it is now being reduced to [Y])? The parenthetical '[less than]' is the crux of the question: should it be present?

Please include explanations of the specifics of the semantics where relevant: this is a question of specific definition and correct usage, not a question of understanding common parlance.

Answer 1

Since you insist on a clinically "sterile" approach with no regard for inference from context, only the "letter of the law" meaning of these words... NO. The phrase "reduce to [a given measurement]" simply means "reach [a given measurement, after having been higher]." It makes no implication about what happens next. In particular, if you start the assertion with "when," then you would seem to be pointing to that exact moment in time.

When the temperature of water is reduced to 0 Celsius, ice crystals form.

In the strictest and most pedantic of interpretations, although of course we still get ice if we continue to lower the temperature, the phase change occurs at the exact moment of 0, not below.*

But meaning is not carried in individual words or phrases. Meaning is constructed, "at run time," by context. In your example, "I'll by when the price is reduced to 30," the most literal meaning is that you'll be standing with your money ready, and pounce the moment it ducks under $30.01. But a reasonable hearer might also suppose that you might not be watching the price every second, and should you discover that you missed "the moment" of 30, would still buy at 20.

On the other hand, if Dr. Emmett Brown promises us that when his DeLorean accelerates to 88 mph we will, ahem, travel through time, then one might reasonably assume that 89 would also suffice—but as we see it in action, since the time-travel occurs at the exact moment of 88 mph, one is never able to reach 89 before disappearing.

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* This is probably terrible science. Supercooling is a thing, and I'm sure the ice formation isn't instantaneous. (Except when it is.) Just an illustration.