Hacker News Reader

I guess it means that average income (or whatever they are measuring) of X = 1/8 x Y. But is it a valid way to say this in English? In Finnish they use this sometimes in the newspapers and so, and I am thinking I need to get over it. But I still hate it.

It's kinda like "X is 8 times less expensive than Y", which I assume means X = 1/8 x X, but to me would make more sense as X = Y - 8Y = -7Y...

View on HN

"Eight times poorer" is improper English and makes no sense, but is a very common usage. Most of the time multipliers are written when they should have used reciprocals. My only explanation is that it is more dramatic to say "eight" and "poor" in the sentence than "1/8" (hey, that looks like math, math is hard) and "rich" (they are emphasizing the poorness of the poor, not the richness of the rich).

Proper English, as I understand it, would be to say "they were 1/8 as rich" or "they have only 12% as much wealth", but that is much less dramatic.

Interesting. In Russian and Polish this kind of phrase is quite common. In German it's not common, and I would consider it bad style. How about English?

achtmal ärmer ... yes doesn't work in german, weird

Reply on news.ycombinator.com