Five times less

[Wilson Gray]

Joel writes:

"If my  salary is 100, then two times more is 300. Â (Count an
additional 100 twice.)"


Precisely my own interpretation. My apologies for not having been clearer.

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain





On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Five times less
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have trouble with "two times more than mine",
> but then again I'm a fussy mathematician. Â If my
> salary is 100, then two times more is
> 300. Â (Count an additional 100 twice.) "Two times as much" is 200.
>
> I also have great difficulty with "two times
> less"; I have to say "one-half as much"
>
> At least they don't say "two times fewer"!
>
> Joel
>
> At 5/22/2009 03:28 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>>
>>I don't have a problem with the fact that, before I retired, my salary
>>was _two times less_ than that of my wife, as opposed to "my wife's
>>salary was _two times more_ Â than mine," but I agree with everyone
>>else, otherwise.
>>
>>A value 200% less than nothing? <har! har!>
>>
>>-Wilson
>>ннн
>>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>-----
>>-Mark Twain
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
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>> > Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster: Â  Â  Â  Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>> > Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Five times less
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > On May 22, 2009, at 6:32 AM, Bill Palmer wrote:
>> >
>> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> >> -----------------------
>> >> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
>> >> Subject: Â  Â  Â Five times lwss
>> >>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >> In a letter to the editor of the Raleigh News & Observer today, a
>> >> writer
>> >> complains that her salary is "five times less" than that of the city
>> >> manager. Â So how does one perform that calculation?
>> >>
>> >> Is this more arithmetic than language?
>> >
>> > we had some considerable discussion of the matter here back in the
>> > fall of 2007 (which i can't at the moment examine, because the server
>> > seems to be unavailable). Â but there's some discussion here:
>> >
>> > AZ, 8/9/08: Recency:
>> > Â http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=463
>> >
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>> >
>>
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