'As Much' Or 'More'? A Language Peeve

Date started: 10/11/20            Date completed: 10/11/20            Date first published: 18/11/20


In case you're collecting pet peeves, and you don't have this one, then here it is.


Every time i hear somebody say something like this:

"this costs 4 times more than that"

it noodles my brain. Why? Because '4 times more' is not what they think it is.


Let's think it through....

Let's pretend that i have two widgets. One costs £1 and the other costs 50p. This means the second costs half as much as the first.

It also costs half less than the first. Ignore this, it's an illusion - i'll get onto that next. But the second does not cost half more than the first!

The second widget costing half more than the first would mean its price were £1.50

If i have two widgets, and one costs £1 while the second costs 25p, then the second costs a quarter as much as the first.

The second does not cost a quarter less than the first - it costs three quarters less.


So describing a price as being 'more/less' or 'times as much' another price, describes a different mathematical operation. {operation = calculation = adding, minussing, multiplying, etc}

Stating one price as a fraction 'more' than another means calculating a fraction of the first price (or whatever number it might be, for that matter) and then adding it on to the original number.

Stating one price as a fraction 'less' than another means calculating a fraction of the first, and then minussing it.

But stating how many 'times' one price is, compared to another, means dividing the second by the first. So of course, the number you say should be different.
 

"2 times £1 is £2" --> "£2 is £1 times 2"

If one widget costs £1 and a second costs 50p

The second costs half less, or 50p less.

It also costs half as much.

If one widget costs £1 and a second costs £2

The second costs once more, or £1 more.

It also costs twice, or 2 times, as much.

So if a widget costs five times as much as the first, then it's price is £5. That's easy to calculate.

But if a widget costs fives times more than the first, then what does that mean?

To calculate "a quarter more" we would multiply the original by one quarter (£1 x 1/4 = 25p) and add that on, to get £1.25

So to calculate "five times more" we would multiply the original by five (£1 x 5 = £5) and add that on, to get £6


So 'five times as much' is £5 but 'five times more' is £6

Disaster at the tills! Your shopping list costs more/less than you thought it would.


And that's my pet peeve. Many people are in the bad habit of saying "less" or "more" (especially 'more') when the habit of saying "as much" would steer their minds into much safer numerical territory.

So the moral of the story is this: don't mix 'more/less' and 'as much'. Or you might get as much than you bargained for ;-)



Notes:

Inspired by Barry Lewis. Kind-of. I thought of actually writing this down thanks to watching one of his videos. It was this one: 'Cooked Breakfast - Cheap vs Steep 4'

Since writing this, but before making the pictures, i discovered an old LindyBeige video, in which he tells everybody that they CAN get the less/fewer thing right, because they never mix up much/many. You can do this, folks - don't let me down :-D 'You can do language!'

Blogger forced me to post this with the font as Verdana, instead of the usual Trebuchet, because Trebuchet wasn't working. [shrugs]
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