saulgoldie -

Since you brought up one of my favorite gripes. . .

As you said, 4 times more than is 5 times as much.

There's also the flip side: "10 times smaller than. . ."

Sorry, but once it's one time smaller, it's gone.

With either of these, you never know whether the speaker (or the writer) realizes that (s)he's an idiot, so you have to guess.

Unfortunately, this idiotic construction has been propogated in "public speaking," "media," "debate," "salemanship" and numerous other fields taught by degenerate wannabe (and failing) pseudo-literati on the falsity that "you have to use the emphatic construction and strong words" to be persuasive.

The only thing it persuades me of is:

1. The person using the term is mathematically illiterate, and hence NOTHING THEY SAY CAN BE BELIEVED, or

2. The person using the term is a liar, hoping you'll believe inflated, exaggerated lies, and NOTHING THEY SAY CAN BE BELIEVED, or

3. The person using the term doesn't know the actual comparison intended, and NOTHING THEY SAY CAN BE BELIEVED.

4. The person using the term gave up, goes along with the crowd, has NO OPINIONS of his/her own, and hence NOTHING THEY SAY CAN BE BELIEVED.

Funny how all the possibilities end the same way.

What is astonishing is that this usage crops up quite frequently even in scientific and technical journals where authors, and ESPECIALLY editors, are expected to know the difference, and apparently DON'T.

John