[Ads-l] Phrase: more than (less than) three hundred degrees below zero

[Mark Mandel]

I read it as

[more than three hundred] degrees below zero

rather than

more than [three hundred degrees below zero]

*"n* below zero" is not a common way of referring to a negative number. I
don't think I have ever encountered it as that; rather, only with reference
to temperature.

Mark Mandel


On Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 1:07 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> A recent email from "The New Yorker" touts an article titled "The
> Renewable-Energy Revolution Will  Need Renewable Storage". The email refers
> to an energy storage system that liquefies air "by cooling it to more than
> three hundred degrees below zero". The article itself uses a similar
> phrase: "cooling air to more than three hundred degrees below zero".


> This sounds odd to me; another phrase would have been more natural:
> "cooling air to less than three hundred degrees below zero". I guess the
> writers of the email and the article are ignoring the sign and simply
> referring to the magnitude of the number. Is this common?


> Apparently, the article is using Fahrenheit degrees since the boiling

point of liquid air is −317.83  degrees F (−194.35 degrees C) according to
> Wikipedia.


> Here is an excerpt from the email:
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> "If you use clean energy to do the initial work and find a green way
> to store and release it, you've created an ecologically responsible
> battery alternative." But finding a practical, inexpensive, and
> efficient way to do it is the trick. One company is pumping water
> underground to form reservoirs that it can release to generate power.
> Another is liquefying air by cooling it to more than three hundred
> degrees below zero, and then warming it up to spin turbines.
> [End excerpt]
>
> Date: April 18, 2022 (website) and April 25, 2022 (magazine issue)
> Title: The Renewable-Energy Revolution Will Need Renewable Storage
> Author: Matthew Hutson
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> A British company, Highview Power, is taking a more extreme tack,
> cooling air to more than three hundred degrees below zero, at which point
> it becomes a liquid.

[End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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