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reliabilityguy

> "Our response times may be slower" would be more natural.

How can the time be slower? Response times may be longer, but not slower

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In colloquial English my construction is just fine, but sure, you'd be welcome to pick longer too.

Some examples of my usage in the wild ("response times may be slower" is present verbatim on each page):

https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy/discussions/8133

https://www.ameristarstaffingny.com/the-negative-effects-of-...

https://oci.wi.gov/Pages/Regulation/Bulletin20200320Regulato...

https://playrix.helpshift.com/hc/en/27-questbound/faq/13930-...

This sentence is a good example where the native speaker's version is worse (in this case because it's just non-sense, as the parent commenter already pointed out).

This is normal and accepted English, at least in the USA.

And in English, the word “worse” requires a comparative compliment . Worse than what? Maybe you meant worse than a non-native speaker, but because you didn’t say it, your sentence sounds off.

In English time can have lots of lengths. Any number of English novels have the phrase “a long minute”. People talk about time passing slowly or quickly. We say things like “The last 15 minutes took hours!” Or “Today went by so fast.”

Just because the word “sunrise” is nonsense scientifically doesn’t mean it’s not understood and correct to use in English.

Sounds like you're the kind of person who will insist to Spanish speakers that a double negative is logically incoherent. Good luck with that approach to language!

> In colloquial English my construction is just fine,

Maybe. However, in my opinion, it’s better to write in such a way that leaves zero chance for misunderstanding.

No real human being would misunderstand because, as you note, time can't go slower. This is just an excuse for pedantry.

When you remark on improvements, up is generally better and down is generally worse. So saying "response times will be higher" gives an immediate sentiment of improvement. But, obviously, a moments thinking helps you re-orient and realize it's better. This is why plots often have "lower is better" in the legend, to help readers understand.

I often use 'slower' and 'faster' as a native speaker to help reinforce the meaning of the direction.

> "response times will be higher" gives an immediate sentiment of improvement.

Higher as opposed to lower? It makes no sense to me.

It makes more sense if the direction is split from the unit in the sentence.

Consider: "after investigating response times and doing and doing a bunch of work, my PR causes a 30% reduction" - if you're busy doing lots of things and already have a lot of cognitive load, this could sound bad because the important phrase "30% reduction" is in there. You are a detail oriented person who is immune to this effect, but there are people who need help reducing their cognitive load in this type of thing.

You can help people reduce cognitive load by replacing "reduction" with "improvement" so they immediately understand that it moved in the right direction.

Exactly.

"Response times will be higher" sounds very confusing as a way of saying we'll take less time to respond, right? So why should "response times will be lower" mean we'll take more time if the opposite construct is confusing?

Far better to just use the comparative forms that we already have for time specifically to make it perfectly clear.

Yes, this is a good explanation for the phenomenon! Thanks.

It’s not time that is slower. It’s a thing called “our response time” which is slower. There is a slower response. This is perfectly grammatically correct and normally used, at least in American English.

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