What does 3 times less mean?

[Fogey]

I hear this sort of thing on the news all the time. It doesn't make much sense to me. What does it mean? is it one third?

[Mecky]

No, I reckon it means 300% taken away

[Frank Sidney]

-300% i think, hope that's clear....

[purpose]

its one more than twice as less,

 

but in terms of the third world.

[quisquose]

No, I reckon it means 300% taken away

 

300% taken away is a minus figure.

 

I reckon it simply means divide by 3, but the person making the claim probably doesn't know what it means anyway.

[HeadingNorth]

300% taken away is a minus figure.

 

I reckon it simply means divide by 3, but the person making the claim probably doesn't know what it means anyway.

 

Taken literally, and to a mathematician, it does mean a minus figure; 3 times less than 100 is minus 200. (3 times 100 is 300; 300 less than 100 is minus 200.)

 

In fact, when people actually make the claim "emits three times less pollutants" or "uses three times less fuel" or some such nonsense, what they actually mean is "one-third as many" and they're betraying their ignorance of the true meaning. It's self-evident that a car cannot use three times less fuel than another car, unless it actually creates petrol as you drive it!

[Alcoblog]

Probably said by the same people who say 'I'm with you 110%'

[quisquose]

Probably said by the same people who say 'I'm with you 110%'

I dislike that even more than the misuse of apostrophes.

 

Particularly from footballers, "we're gutted coz we gave it 110%".

 

[TimmyR]

I dislike that even more than the misuse of apostrophes.

 

Particularly from footballers, "we're gutted coz we gave it 110%".

 

 

They should rephrase to: "We have three times less guts because we gave it 110%"

[esme]

it's one of those woolly made up things that don't actually mean anything but pull the consumer into the idea that this is better than the other stuff

 

nutrilium and boswelox are prime examples for me, they've put an obviously made up name on some chemical that we already know about to make it sound sexy and new so we'll rush out and buy stuff with it in

 

so 3 times less than what ?

 

the assumption is it's 3 times less than what they achieved before, so if the previous achievement was nothing then 3 times less is still nothing, if it was a 1% improvement in some measurement then 3 times less is a 3% improvement

 

but without a referent it's meaningless

 

like ads that say "most people prefer...." and at the bottom of the screen in tiny print that you can't see unless you are on HD is the text "taken from a sample of 21 people where 11 of them agreed" which is hardly representative but it is still "most"

 

this trend started in advertising and sadly it's making it's way into the news and the real world

 

so don't worry the reason that it doesn't make sense to you is purely because it doesn't make sense at all

 

it's filler, meaningless drivel, something to fill the gap that sounds like it might mean something vaguely reassuring or worrying depending on what is required, but isn't