. . . times lower than . . .

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:21 AM -0400 9/5/07, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>I share the original concern:  "Five times lower" sounds strange to my ear
>and requires mental recomputation every time.  I wonder if this usage has
>arisen from a general unfamiliarity with fractional computations?  And
>"twice as short" as a 6-inch item would logically mean 12 inches, wouldn't
>it?

If I had to vote, it would = '3 inches'.  12 inches would be half as
short as 6.  But neither of these actually occurs for me.

LH


>
>I don't think we're being old curmudgeons here.  The usage just seems weird!
>
>At 10:57 AM 9/5/2007, you wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Laurence Urdang <urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
>>Subject:      Re: . . . times lower than . . .
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>I wrote nothing about what LH calls "absolute" comparisons, for
>>they are fine.
>>   But I cannot agree that "half as long" is the same as "twice as short":
>>such an equivalency makes no sense to me.  "Twice" means 'two times,' not
>>'half,' and it is beyond me how or why the two have become confused.
>>   L. Urdang
>>
>>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: Laurence Horn
>>Subject: Re: . . . times lower than . . .
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>At 8:08 AM -0700 9/4/07, Laurence Urdang wrote:
>>>After the initial reading of the beginning of this response, I
>>>thought I'd gone daft. My comment about temperature had nothing
>>>whatsoever to do with the scales used, and they are entirely
>>>irrelevant.
>>>  Also, I didn't say I don't understand it, just that I consider it
>>>an aberrant usage.
>>>  L. Urdang
>>
>>For me, it would go along with operations on marked scales--e.g.
>>"twice as short" rather than "half as tall/long"; "three times as
>>narrow" rather than "one third as wide". On the other hand, absolute
>>rather than relative comparisons seem fine:
>>
>>two degrees lower
>>three inches shorter
>>one inch narrower
>>
>>YMMV.
>>
>>LH
>>
>>>
>>>"Joel S. Berson" wrote:
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>-----------------------
>>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
>>>Subject: Re: . . . times lower than . . .
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>------
>>>
>>>At 9/4/2007 09:56 AM, Laurence Urdang wrote:
>>>>  From a letter in today's Daily Telegraph:
>>>>  ". . . the murder rate in London is five times lower than some
>>>>  cities in the United States . . ."
>>>>  I am not interested in the source or in the sense but in this
>>>>  typical use of times that has sprung up in the past couple of
>>>>  decades (according to my observation) with the meaning 'one nth':
>>>>  in the present instance, in my dialect (!) I should have said, ". .
>>>>  . is one fifth (of) that in some cities."
>>>>  I cannot conceive how or why times, which is an indication of
>>>>  multiplication, not division, has come to mean its opposite.
>>>>  Am I the only English speaker on earth who has noticed this or is
>>>>  bothered by it? I have never seen another comment on it.
>>>
>>>I have noticed it and am somewhat bothered by it, but I do understand
>>>it. And it does not seem incorrect mathematically -- that is, given
>>>one of the two numbers I can compute the other confidently.
>>>
>>>>  A typical context would be, "The average temperature at the
>>>>  Antarctic is five times lower than [that] at the Arctic." [Forget
>>>>  about the truth of the statement, for grammar and truth are unrelated.]
>>>
>>>Apart from truth, I don't think one can say this about the customary
>>>(Fahrenheit, Centigrade) temperature scales -- they do not have the
>>>mathematical property (whose name I've forgotten) that allows ratios
>>>to be computed. One can apply ratios to the Kelvin scale, with its
>>  >zero at absolute zero.
>>>
>>>>  In other words, instead of using the appropriate fraction or
>>>>  percentage indicated, 'one quarter of' becomes "four times lower
>>>>  than," 'one third of' becomes "three times less than," etc.
>>>
>>>Joel
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org