nomconjobjs: between you and me/I (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

" By your interpretation, A can "outnumber" B "by a factor of" 1. I
simply fail to see this as a possibility."

And that is the root of the problem.  "Outnumber" refers to an additive
excess, and "factor" refers to a multiplicative operation.  The two
terms don't work well together, and ambiguities can result.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Victor Steinbok
> Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 1:29 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: nomconjobjs: between you and me/I (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
---------------
> --------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: nomconjobjs: between you and me/I (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> You *can* say it, but how often does this appear in practice.
> Personally, I have never seen anyone actually interpret "by a factor
> of"
> with any other combination of verbs and adjectives as anything but
> multiplication/division. This is not the same as x%, where the percent
> defines relative increase or decrease, virtually by
> definition--something that rises 100% actually doubles. It would make
> no
> sense to use "rise" if it were not a question of difference.
Similarly,
> consider the extreme case here. By your interpretation, A can
> "outnumber" B "by a factor of" 1. I simply fail to see this as a
> possibility. Despite having graded hundreds (thousands?) of often
inept
> math students, I am yet to encounter such an interpretation in live
> practice (as opposed to an academic discourse of "possible"
> interpretations). Just as "percent" blocks ratios/factors (at least
> mathematically--not talking about novice misinterpretation), so should
> "factor" block any use of differences. My claim is essentially that
not
> only /should/ it block, but it actually does so far stronger than
> percent blocks ratios (students make that mistake all the time).
>
> My initial response to Tom had a typo--the keyboard is "sticking" a
bit
> and I wrote 40 instead of 440--usually I catch the omissions, but it's
> harder with numbers. My response was also slightly misdirected (mea
> culpa, in this case) as I was unnecessarily impatient with Tom's
query.
>
>      VS-)
>
> On 2/22/2010 12:15 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> > In Tom's example, I would say that A = 440.  But I could see the
> > argument for A = 540 -- "outnumbers" could refer to the excess
> portion.
> > Arnold's logic is A = B*(factor).  Given the use of the word
> > "outnumber", I wouldn't say that A = B*(1 + factor) is wrong.  If
the
> > original sentence were "A outnumbers B by a factor of 1.0", this is
> the
> > only way I could interpret it.
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> >> Behalf Of Arnold Zwicky
> >> Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 10:55 AM
> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >> Subject: Re: nomconjobjs: between you and me/I
> >>
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>
> > --------
> >> 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
> >>
> >>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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