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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

Pet peeve: does "117% more" mean 1.17 times the expected amount, or 2.17 times the expected amount?

I avoid using this kind of terminology in my writing because I'm never completely sure that my readers will share the same exact definition of how those numbers should be interpreted.

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I completely agree with you, but I don't think it's ever ambiguous. I think it always means 2.17 times the expected amount. If a normal startup raises $100, then a highly differentiated startup will raise $217. That's because the article could have been "X raises 20% more", in which case they'd get $120 over the $100 baseline. Basically, I think "more" is the signifier that you don't multiply by 1.17. If that's missing, the number is meaningless.

I know that, and you know that. But did the person who wrote the article also know that? How careful were they?

Probably? But not definitely. Which is why I never use that term myself.

Similar to the reason I never say "bi-monthly" - it could mean twice a month, it could mean once every two months. So I don't use the term.

Yeah, sorry, I meant to say I totally agree with you. I mentally explain this to myself every time I see it; 1 hour to understand what the % means, 5 seconds to actually read the article. It's terrible.

The latter is the standard meaning. If the author means something different, that means the author is being unclear and it shouldn't be on the reader to parse the author's nonstandard intentions.

From a common sense perspective: If I say something contains "100% more whatever", you would expect it to contain double what it normally contains.

It has to be the latter, otherwise they'd say 17% more??

That's my assumption to, but I'm never entirely certain that's what they mean.

Do you have some examples where this intuition has turned out to be false and the author meant the former case?

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