Should it be "cheaper price" or "lower price"?
I'm specifically referring to American English.
"Cheap prices provide more access to customers...."
Shouldn't it be "Low prices..."?
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1A job for ngrams: books.google.com/ngrams/…– PamCommented Feb 22, 2019 at 11:26
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1Welcome to ELU, by the way. ngrams should show you that "low prices" is more commonly used in AmE texts, but that "cheap prices" is also used. Therefore, it's probably a matter of opinion in this case (and ELU avoids answers that are based only on opinion).– PamCommented Feb 22, 2019 at 11:29
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1What do you mean by "access to customers"? Do the customers get access? Or does someone get access to the customers?– TimRCommented Feb 22, 2019 at 20:20
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1In American retail, the common practice is to advertise items at "low prices." Low prices fits better in the sentence in American English.– Steve B053Commented Feb 24, 2019 at 10:35
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4 Answers
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines cheap as
charging or obtainable at a low price
a: a good cheap hotel
cheap tickets
b : purchasable below the going price or the real value
so, strictly speaking, prices cannot be cheap since there is usually no price for a price; goods and services can be cheap or expensive but prices, as you say, can only be low or high. The only circumstance, strictly, that allows you have a cheap or expensive price is when a supplier or contractor charges you for an estimate.
Having said that, in normal conversation and in advertising copy it is very common to see and hear the phrase "cheap price" instead of "low price". In some social circles I believe that "cheap price" would be understood better than the more 'correct' "low price".
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Yes, spot on. Since we are about usage, usage wins. On the other hand, do you think that there is a sense that in financial and equity trading there are complex deals where there can be a 'price for a price'. In a sense, the subprime mortgage schemes were examples of this, were they not?– TuffyCommented Feb 24, 2019 at 10:39
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@Tuffy Yes, good point. However I think that's a slightly different use of 'price' since it is the more metaphorical sense of there being "a price to pay" for a certain course of action. The normal sense of 'price' is that of the value placed on something by a vendor and is, therefore, explicit before the transaction. The "price to pay" refers to costs, not necessarily monetary, incurred after a course of action has been undertaken. For example increased homelessness was part of the "price paid" for the subprime mortgage schemes.– BoldBenCommented Feb 24, 2019 at 11:37
It's almost the same, and both are used constantly today interchangeably to mean the same thing; but, there are subtle differences.
cheap adj: at low price, worth more than cost.
adverb: at or for a low pricelow adj: from top to bottom, below average in amount, extent, or intensity; small:
adverb: in or in a low position or state
cheap and low are synonyms for each other and synonyms for inexpensive.
In both sentences, the root words low and cheap are being used as adjectives. The connotation one over the other is, getting something cheap, you to get at a low price, and the item itself was worth more than the cost.
Low price might make someone believe they are getting something cheaper. Stores often trick buyers by offering items at a ‘lower price’. This, to make the buyer think the seller is selling something cheap; but, saying you paid a ‘lower price’ for something doesn't make the item itself worth more than the cost.
Again, they are synonyms of each other. Just remember the adjective definition difference that separates cheap from low.
source: word definition cheap, low (www.dict.com)
Price can be low or high. It can't be cheap or expensive (unless we talk about trading on stock markets). Cheap prices mostly come from lack of education.
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2Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please edit to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.– Community BotCommented Apr 7, 2023 at 8:03
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1While new answers to old questions are welcome on this site, it is expected that they will be posted only if they add something significant to what already appears on the page. What exactly does this answer add to the one posted by BoldBen?– jsw29Commented Apr 7, 2023 at 17:23
I would regard "cheap" and "low price" as synonyms, so that "price" would be redundant in the first expression.
I notice other examples in popular speech of words being combined with parts of their synonyms. Thus "free", which means the same as "for nothing", becomes "for free". And "reticent", which means "reluctant to speak" becomes "reticent to speak". Tautologies are being created.
