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B is 4, A is 10 times more, is A 44? I am really confused by "times" and "more" or "better".

Steven
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  • Do you have a source you can cite, or give some context? Is this a riddle in the form of a poem, for instance, where 'more' would have just been put in for a rhyme? – Leon Conrad Feb 15 '14 at 05:29
  • For example, product A is 10 times better than product B. Country A is developing 10 times faster than country B. – Steven Feb 15 '14 at 05:34
  • Related: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/91263/why-is-a-100-increase-the-same-amount-as-a-two-fold-increase – Damkerng T. Feb 15 '14 at 10:09
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    I think the fact that times means multiplication, not multiplication and addition** is General Reference. – FumbleFingers Feb 15 '14 at 13:08
  • Related: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/7894/x-times-as-many-as-or-x-times-more-than – Kit Z. Fox Feb 15 '14 at 19:06
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    Maths was never my forte but even I know that "10 times 4" is 40. Why is this an English language question? – Mari-Lou A Feb 15 '14 at 20:33
  • The answer to this question hinges on the difference between more than and as much as. As this distinction is not made clear in any of the existing answers, the question should be reopened. – phenry Feb 17 '14 at 18:31
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    1 - 'X times more than' is the same as 'X times'. It is a mistake to think it is 'X+1 times'. 2 - it is a common mistake though, an eggcorn out of confusing comparison with '200% more' which does mean 3 times as much. – Mitch Feb 18 '14 at 01:36
  • Precisionist and pragmatic language part company hereabouts, I'm afraid. '300% more than x' is normally intended and taken as 3 times x, while '100% more than x' is twice x. If important, it's best to rephrase. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 11 '19 at 16:18

4 Answers4

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Times means "times". Multiplication. Times does not mean "multiplication and then addition".

The more, better and so on are red herrings. They do not mean addition, either. Their role is to specify which way the multiplication goes. To see that, remind yourself that:

  1. Their opposites, less and worse and so on, do not specify subtraction. "B is four, A is ten times less" does not mean you have to subtract four, or multiply with minus four, or anything like that.
  2. You cannot drop these words and just say "A is four. B is ten times." Ten times what? More? Less? Precisely. You have to specify the direction. And when you specify the direction, all you do is specify the direction.

So, in short:

  • B is 4, A is 10 times more/better/faster

    → A = 10 × B
    A is 40, not 44.
    B is 10 times less/worse/slower.

  • B is 4, A is 10 times less/worse/slower

    → B = 10 × A
    A is 0.4, not 36, not −36, not −3.6.
    B is 10 times more/better/faster.

Community
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RegDwigнt
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  • ‘More (than)’ is optional, though, which I guess is what caused the confusion. If A is 4 and B is 10 times A, obviously B is 40. But you could logically (though never in practice) argue that if B is ten times more than A, it ought to be A and then ten times A, i.e., 44. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 15 '14 at 09:48
  • better and faster are indeed red herrings. Normally I would actually put "faster"with less and slower with more. If A takes 4 seconds, and B is ten times faster, B does not take 40 seconds! For better it all depends on what is better: less or more? – oerkelens Feb 15 '14 at 12:23
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    I couldn't disagree more. If A is 40, then A is 10 times as much as B, but only 9 times more than A. That said, as much as and more than are often treated as synonyms in informal use, and for that reason both constructions should probably be avoided if precision is required. – phenry Feb 17 '14 at 18:30
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    @phenry: Here are all 116 COCA cites for "ten times more". Including formal and academic writing. You will be hard pressed to find a single one among them that means "eleven times as much". In other news, since we use the decimal system, by your reasoning we should be seeing "nine times more", "ninety-nine times more", and "999 times more" much more often than "ten times more", "a hundred times more", "1000 times more". But the opposite is true. So your reasoning is wishful thinking. – RegDwigнt Feb 17 '14 at 23:49
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    @RegDwigнt - and those COCA cites overwhelmingly use "ten times more" in a figurative sense... which illustrates the danger of using this expression when discussing more precise matters. – phenry Feb 18 '14 at 00:19
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"Times" would usually refer to multiplication. "More" would usually refer to addition. (In my experience "Better" isn't commonly to indicate quantity. (If you gave an example I could clarify the meaning however.)

Examples: "That cost ten times more than before! It was just five dollars last week." (10 x 5 = 50) "Sorry, that will be 3 dollars more, you only gave me 2 dollars." (3 + 2 = 5)

Let me know if I didn't interpret your question correctly.

Michelle Welcks
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I would agree that A is indeed 44, for consistency with the statements like "B is 4, A is 25% more", which can only reasonably imply that "A is 5". In this latter example, the "more" certainly implies addition.

Thus I would say that these two statements are correct: "B is 4, A is 10 times B, thus A is 40"; "B is 4, A is 10 times more than B, thus A is 44".

Senex
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    Yes, but this is English, not math, and "percent" works differently than "times" in English. If you say A is 10, B is 50% more, than B is clearly 15. However, if you say A is 10, B is half times more, people will not understand you. In other words, nobody actually says "is half times more". Here is proof. – Peter Shor Feb 15 '14 at 19:30
  • The replacement "50%" -> "(a) half" yields "B is (a) half more", which is correct English. (You added "times".) And then my point still holds: "A is 10, B is a half more" implies "B is 15". The point is that "more" implies addition. – Senex Feb 15 '14 at 19:54
  • I added *times* because the OP had a question about "ten times* more". If you say "X times more", in colloquial English that means you multiply by X, not by X+1. This doesn't have to be consistent with your example "25% more"* because nobody actually says "one quarter times more". – Peter Shor Feb 15 '14 at 20:15
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    But people do write "0.25 times more" (see http://www.google.com/search?q=%220.25+times+more%22), meaning addition. I agree this "times-er" construction is widely misused in colloquial English, but used correctly "X times more" = "X+1 times". – Senex Feb 15 '14 at 21:23
  • ten times as many people say "1.25 times more" than "0.25 times more". My guess is that they all mean the same thing. Are you saying that only 10% of these people are correct? – Peter Shor Feb 16 '14 at 00:25
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    Under the assumption that they all mean the same thing, then yes, only 10% are correct. I submit that argumentum ad populum is not a guide to correctness: search Google for "men's trousers" and "mens trousers". Twice as many hits for the latter. – Senex Feb 17 '14 at 00:31
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    Also, even if we accept that, colloquially, "ten times more" means "ten times", when decimals are used, we may reasonably assume that a precise statement is being made, perhaps with reference to statistics, measurements etc. In such a context, I think correctness requires that "1.25 times more" be greater than "0.25 times more". Also, if "1.25 times more" means the same as "1.25 times", does "0.25 times more" mean the same as "0.25 times"? – Senex Feb 17 '14 at 01:00
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Given your clarification comment, A is 40. If country A is developing 10 times faster than country B, and if B is developing at a rate of 4 "development units" per year (whatever they are), then B is developing at 40 unit per year.

An alternative phrase would be ten times greater.

Daniel Harbour
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  • So, we think that "A is ten times B" means the same as "A is ten times more than B"...? – GEdgar Feb 15 '14 at 18:35
  • Yes, we do, all of us. But their contexts of use differ. The longer one strikes us as more natural in a context where both are defined relative to a third number: If B = 2C and A = 20C, then A is ten times more than B. (This isn’t to rule out “A is ten times B” here. Rather, it is to illustrate a context where the longer version doesn’t sound somewhat natural.) – Daniel Harbour Feb 16 '14 at 01:06