Thread

1. miffy900 · 1789683723 · focus · HN ↗

   I really wish people would stop saying N times smaller than something when making a comparison; that makes no sense - it's 1/9th (11.11%) the size. You don't get a smaller quantity by multiplying by a number greater than 1.0. You could instead reverse the subjects being compared - "the original model is 9x bigger than this new smaller, efficient model" or some such. That makes sense.

   I keep seeing this being used when people talk about efficiency or performance gains and it's just very unintuitive language.

   1. hamandcheese · 1789684149 · focus · HN ↗

      If we were talking about speed instead of size, i think it would be perfectly reasonable to say 9x faster. I'm not sure I agree that 9x smaller is unintuitive. It makes sense to me.

      1. simondotau · 1789687982 · focus · HN ↗

         "Nine times" literally means multiplied by nine, but here we're dividing by nine. It's not unintelligible (because the corrupted verbiage is so commonplace) but it is needlessly awkward. Like saying "resulted in a size reduction increase of 10 megabytes."

         1. D-Machine · 1789710503 · focus · HN ↗

            > "Nine times" literally means multiplied by nine

            Rather, "nine times larger" means multiplied by nine, and "nine times smaller" means divided by nine. This is basic and not particularly awkward, certainly not more so than e.g. positive/negative correlation, or many much more awkward and more common linguistic constructions, IMO.

            If you have to edit out words (i.e. context) to argue a phrase doesn't make sense... I am not sure what mental model you have for natural language, exactly, but it certainly isn't a very robust one.

            1. simondotau · 1789743678 · focus · HN ↗

               [dead]

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