On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:56:58 +0000
Roger Chapman wrote:

On 11/11/2011 09:39, Tim Streater wrote:
So how do we deal with those people who annoyingly describe
something as being 'three times smaller' than something else?

That's just a minor English usage point, and nowhere near as
silly as the other above reversals.


Maybe, but it's still annoying.

Why? It's just stating the factor that you multiply or divide
with.

How would you rewrite the following anyway?:
"Tom's cock was three times longer than Jim's, but Jim's nose was
five times smaller than Tom's."

You can't get less than one times smaller - which makes it zero.
What you want to say is that Jim's nose is one fifth the size of
Tom's. "Five times smaller" is meaningless.

Unfortunately such practices are impossible to stamp out once the
usage becomes common. There is some modern usage that doesn't
actually make sense if you don't know the convention. I was reminded
of the original meaning of 'port your helm' (turn to starboard)
before it was turned on its head but thought I had best look it up
before mentioning it and came across this:

"A steering wheel is usually connected to the rudder by cables and
pulleys in such a fashion that the wheel, the rudder and the vessel
all turn in the same direction."

I saw some discussion that possibly linked the change of the convention
to the sinking of the Titanic. Previously, pushing a tiller to the left
(port) resulted in a movement of the ship to the right (starboard), and
apparently early ships' wheels followed that convention, whereas the
Titanic was one of the early ships to change to the system as described
above. I am merely quoting a report, I have no idea if it's true or not.
But it reflects your quotation; 'port your helm' (turn to starboard)
before it was turned on its head.

Thank you for your support. I agree that the practice is becoming more
and more common, unfortunately. I also now see in print the use of 'of'
for 'have', which was surely first a spoken mis-use, but is now becoming
more frequent. As in: "I could of done that differently". It makes me
cringe.
And as for the American 'gonna', which is invading these shores, Help!

I notice that nobody has yet commented on my interpretation of the
relative sizes of Jim's and Tom's nether appendages.
--
Davey.