On: Launch HN: Aqua Voice (YC W24) – Voice-driven text...

[musiciangames]

7 times 70 =490. 490 fewer than 70 is -420. But words mean what you want them to mean, so 7 times fewer to mean 1/7th is becoming commonplace.

(edited because formatting swallowed asterisk for times)

[zigzag312 → musiciangames]

Is there any case where your interpretation makes sense? Would you ever say 0.86 times fewer instead of 0.86 of the size?

If new is 1/7 the size of the old, then 7 * new = old. It takes 7 times of new_count to get the value of old_count. 1/7th of the old_count. 7x fewer seems like a shorthand, but I'm not a native English speaker.

  x times != x times fewer

7 times => multiply

7 times fewer => multiply by fraction

[musiciangames → zigzag312]

I would never say times fewer, because it is ambiguous.

[zigzag312 → musiciangames]

When value is above 1, it's not really ambiguous anymore as only one interpretation makes sense. But I understand that it could still be incorrect, if it's not well defined term in English.

[musiciangames → zigzag312]

You choose an interesting case at 1. What does 1 times less errors mean? To me it means no errors.

[zigzag312 → musiciangames]

It's ambiguous as it's not above or below 1 :)

[djbusby → musiciangames]

Gotta put a back-whack in like \* for *