S
Snive
New Member
Russian
- Jan 25, 2012
- #1
Hello everybody.
I have some problems when I want to say that something needs to be increased/decreased several times. I don't want to use "six,seven-fold" or something like that. I know that we can say it using "one, two, three, four ....... times". But the problem is that I don't know how to say it correctly if I, for example, want to say "The incomes in the country decreased by eight times" or "You have to increase the capacity of that device by four times". And hence I have one more question: what we have when saying "by X times"? What would be the difference if we said that without "by", just "increased/decreased X times"?
Thank you.
entangledbank
Senior Member
London
English - South-East England
- Jan 25, 2012
- #2
Unfortunately English is ambiguous in this respect. People argue about it. Everyone thinks it's obvious that 'four times bigger' means X and 'four times as big' means Y, but they disagree about X and Y. If the budget was £1000 and it increased (by) eight times, or by a factor of eight, or by eight, is it now £8000 or £9000? We have previous threads about this, though I'm not sure how you would find them.
S
Snive
New Member
Russian
- Jan 25, 2012
- #3
Thank you. But is what I suggested correct? I mean my two sentences.
F
Fabulist
Banned
Annandale, Virginia, USA
American English
- Jan 25, 2012
- #4
"Decreased by 8 times" doesn't mean anything to me at all. "Decreased to an eighth of its former size or amount" is precise, and perhaps that's what some muddle-headed innumerate meant by "decreased by 8 times," but I don't know, and I wouldn't trust the writer's arithmetic. Sometimes I read "decreased by" over 100%, which would produce a negative number as far as I can understand, but sometimes that's impossible.
I think the best thing to do in these cases is to provide both numbers and let the reader draw his own conclusion about the relationship between them. Just say, "increased from 6 to 48" or "decreased from 48 to 6" and either leave it at that or, if you must give a proportion, add it.
"From 1950 to 2000, the country's gross national product increased eight times, from 6 billion flinds* to 48 billion flinds."
"The war years were an economic disaster. The gross national product fell from its prewar level of 48 billion flinds to 6 billion flinds."
*The country's unit of currency is the flind of 100 urthals.
S
Snive
New Member
Russian
- Jan 25, 2012
- #5
Thank you too. But there's still a problem. What if I need to say: "You have to increase the capacity of that device by four times"? Or is it better to say that sentence using "fourfold"?
F
Fabulist
Banned
Annandale, Virginia, USA
American English
- Jan 25, 2012
- #6
I don't think "fourfold" is used much currently in AE; I don't know about BE. I've seen x-fold in older written material, but I especially wouldn't expect to see it in technical material. If you are dealing with engineers, "by four times" ought to mean "× 4" and you should be all right. If you are not, and the people you are speaking to might think "by four times" means to add an amount that is 4× the base amount (making the new total five times the base), then you had better say "to four times its current level" and give the numbers.Example: "Increase the capacity of the pump from 400 cc/min to 1600 cc/min."
That's probably what the engineers would want anyway. Be specific and let them do their own math.
S
Snive
New Member
Russian
- Jan 25, 2012
- #7
Okay, thank you!
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