nomconjobjs: between you and me/I

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Feb 22, 2010, at 8:41 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

> Is the phrase "by a factor of" common in US?  To say A outnumbers B
> by a factor of 4.4 - what does that mean?  If B is 100 than A is  ?

my usage of "a factor of N" is short for "a factor of N:1", meaning
that the frequency of A is greater than the frequency of B, and the
ratio of A to B is N:1.

> Sorry.  Too old for new math.

there's nothing new-mathy about it.  it's entirely a matter of the
language i used to talk about the data, which apparently is opaque to
at least one reader.

(by the way, the new math was new in the 1960s, which is quite some
time ago now.)

arnold

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