Is "X times as much" the same as "X times more"?

Factual Questions
41

Back to the term “Twice” or “Double” applied to something.

For example, let’s take what Act claims in their Twice the Size bottle of mouthwash.

Original size, 18 oz * 2 = 36 oz. Fair enough, but that’s not a doubling in volume of the original container. That’s just a linear doubling of the ounces itself. Even look at the two bottles next to each other… certainly doesn’t seem double, does it?

A true doubling of volume (sticking to an ideal cubic volumes) would be to double length, width and height of the container. So, that should be 18 oz cubed, not squared. They didn’t even give you 36 oz in the first place, but according twice the volume, it should be 54 oz.

But they never said “Volume.” But they did say “Size.” Which is meaningless. So, what’s the objective interpretation here?

42

“X times more” is less specific, since it can be equally used to mean either “X times as much” or “X times as many”. “X times more than Y” would be the approved form, since we don’t know if Y is countable or not.

43

Of course they do. They do worse than that. Sometimes it’s legal (e.g. “decaffeinated” coffee or tea can actually contain caffeine and “alcohol-free beer” can contain alcohol) and sometimes the laws aren’t specific about it. But it’s still false advertizing.

If your cereal has 20 berries in a box and mine has 10, saying that your cereal has “200% more berries” is lying.

If your mouthwash bottle holds 33.8 oz and mine has 18 oz, saying it’s “twice as much” is lying. Saying “almost twice as much” would probably be reasonable, though.

My point about juries is that the odds are very good that a jury will contain a majority that cannot do basic high school algebra and wouldn’t even understand the issue this thread is talking about. That’s why so many consumers don’t realize they’re being lied to.

You might want to look up the definition of “volume.” If a bottle holds 18 oz of liquid and you want to double the amount of liquid it holds, you neither square nor cube the 18 oz; you double it. The answer is 36 oz.

If you talk about something being twice as big as something else, you’re typically referring either to its volume or its mass. The concept of “twice as big” is pretty ill-defined, however. Would you call a 48" widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) TV twice as big as a 24" traditional (4:3) TV? Most people would, even though it’s not twice the screen area, twice the height, or twice the width.

If I say my table is twice as big as your table, you’d probably expect the surface area (length x width) of the table to be twice as big, but the heights to be the same.

44

[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:43, topic:659678”]

Of course they do. They do worse than that. Sometimes it’s legal (e.g. “decaffeinated” coffee or tea can actually contain caffeine and “alcohol-free beer” can contain alcohol) and sometimes the laws aren’t specific about it. But it’s still false advertizing.

If your cereal has 20 berries in a box and mine has 10, saying that your cereal has “200% more berries” is lying.

If your mouthwash bottle holds 33.8 oz and mine has 18 oz, saying it’s “twice as much” is lying. Saying “almost twice as much” would probably be reasonable, though.

My point about juries is that the odds are very good that a jury will contain a majority that cannot do basic high school algebra and wouldn’t even understand the issue this thread is talking about. That’s why so many consumers don’t realize they’re being lied to.

You might want to look up the definition of “volume.” If a bottle holds 18 oz of liquid and you want to double the amount of liquid it holds, you neither square nor cube the 18 oz; you double it. The answer is 36 oz.
[/QUOTE]

That’s just it, what are they saying is twice as big, it’s mass or the volume of the container? Depends on the costumer’s expectations. There’s doubling by mass/weight, and doubling by volume. The former is squared. The latter is cubed. It may be understood by know, but the point of marketing is to pull focus groups, gathering data over how a cross-section of people “feel” about packaging designs and promotions. They play to that. I was trying to achive the point of how equvocating can be just as effective if you use just the right phrasing, or use ambiguous terms.

The lesson was that, as most people wouldn’t expect it to pertain to doubling the volume by cubing its dimensions, they forgot to mention …AND HALF THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT!"

[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:43, topic:659678”]

If you talk about something being twice as big as something else, you’re typically referring either to its volume or its mass. The concept of “twice as big” is pretty ill-defined, however. Would you call a 48" widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) TV twice as big as a 24" traditional (4:3) TV? Most people would, even though it’s not twice the screen area, twice the height, or twice the width.
[/QUOTE]

As to the TVs, then they’re idiots. Aspect Ratio has nothing to do with resolution. Only the completely ignorant wouldn’t understand this difference if they were buying a TV.

Hrmm… wonder if there’s a buck to be made over this confusion?..

[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:43, topic:659678”]

If I say my table is twice as big as your table, you’d probably expect the surface area (length x width) of the table to be twice as big, but the heights to be the same.
[/QUOTE]

Apples and oranges. First of all, if he replied, “twice as big,” I wouldn’t have a clear idea of length and width, despite leaving out its height, and would then have to ask about width and length, I might even ask if it’s taller/shorter.

Besides, there’s technically accurate, and colloquially understood. Pander toward the winning bias and that’s what’ll end up on the label. On top of that, they’ll equivocate or flat-out deceive, as in the Aim Mouthwash.

45

*speaking in terms of a cubic volume. I realize there’s differences is how volume is determined in other forms, like spheres. (and OOOPS, “ACT Mouthwash”)

46

Indeed, I was incorrect about doubling the volume of a cube. You would actually square the dimensions from corner to corer of all three side-elevations (not its length, width or height).

Then you would add all 3 new measurements to form the sides of a cube with double the volume of the previous cube.