xkcd #3232: Countdown Standard
Title text:
Anyone who is caught counting ‘three … two … one … zero … GO!’ will be punished with a lifetime of eating only ISO standard food samples.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3232/
A significant portion of the population thinks that “X times more” and “X times as much” mean the same thing. It drives me insane. I don’t think it’s ever formally taught because they use more rigorous language in school problems, but I’d like to think most people would agree “50% more” means 150%, and “50% as much” means 50%. 2X seems to cause confusion though.
So yeah, codifying that first chance.
Edit: What have I done, I knew better than to post a pet peeve in a comment chain.
Strong disagree, I’ve literally never seen someone say “X times more” to mean X+1 times as much
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I posted a source below explaining it. If you can find an expert saying they are the same I’d love to see it, as it would rationalize the insanity that’s been peeving me for so long.
Lol, the way that people actually use language holds way more water than the opinions of an expert
Except a majority of people do use language the way I do, you simply have been misunderstanding a lot of people your whole life. Language experts love to change language with the times. If you were in the majority, they would.
That only works if X is a fraction or percentage though? Because 3 times more and 3 times as much do mean the same thing.
They do not.
I can absolutely see where you and that article are coming from, but it takes me so much more brainpower to reach that conclusion, whereas it intuitively feels like they should mean the same thing. And maybe that is because the two are used interchangeably in everyday speak so I’ve never had to think about the difference.
I’ve been through this conversation so many times it haunts me. What I’ve found is that people don’t use that verbiage outside of casual conversation, so when they misunderstand each other nothing comes of it, so they never find out. Someone triples his salary and tells you “I’m making two times more now!” and you think “Cool, he doubled his salary” and never find out that you misunderstood each other.
Once I walked around with my best friend after having this exact disagreement and polled people at work for their thoughts. The vast majority went by my understanding, as do any grammar authors you can find online. It just never comes up unless someone like me makes a whole thing about it.
You are correct in that enough people share the misunderstanding that it becomes technically correct use of language, like using “literally” to mean “not literally”.
It’s clear use of language though, more than means a number is more than another.
Pete has —— more apples than John.
P = J + (described amount)
(3) more > P = J + (3)
(2 times or 200%) more > P = J + (200% J) = 300% J
If you want to say they are interchangeable, you are saying “50% more” and “50% as much” mean the same thing.
Certainly agree that I’ve never asked or been asked about this before!
My original thing, though, was that it couldn’t be used interchangeably for fractions or percentages, but could for whole numbers. So your example with 50% clearly doesn’t work, but 3 times more and 3 times as much could more easily mean the same thing.