• Squirrel
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    97
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    What is “five times shorter?” Is that one fifth as long? We can’t really measure the shortness of a thing, only its length.

    Sorry, it’s a pet peeve of mine.

    • Grass@geddit.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I would have commented just this and nothing else if you weren’t already doing god’s work.

    • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      The shortness of a thing is an aspect of its length. Your comment makes no sense. Five times shorter means that you can play Mirage five times in the same time it takes to play Valhalla once. I’m pedantic as hell but this comes off to me as fake pedantry.

      • Squirrel
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I’m being quite pedantic, but it is genuine. It’s a common language mistake that frustrates me.

        Don’t try to multiply a relative descriptor when you can use hard numbers (i.e. it’s 20 hours shorter) or the appropriate relative measurement (i.e. it’s 20% as long). It’s both improper English and less clear (maybe “2 times harder to understand”?) to do so.