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Aug10
How many times less than?
A form of words which seems to have come into use recently is the 'x times less than' type of statement - as in 'He earns 10 times less than I do', or 'Rail passengers are 1500 times less likely to have an accident than motor cyclists'.
Very true, no doubt - but what does it mean?
If I have 100, 10 times more than this is 1000 - that's easy. So is 10 times less than this actually a negative figure, -900? If not, why not?
And if you really mean 'one tenth of' then why not say so? That is clear and unambiguous - a tenth of 100 is 100 divided by 10.
Because I came across '1.6 times less than' recently: this is probably '60% of' but it seemed a bizarre way of putting it. I assume that 'two times less than' is a half, and you wouldn't (presumably!) say 'one times less than'!
I would like to see this terminology used several times less than I do!
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