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[Olaf Seibert <774142@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat 30 Apr 2011 at 16:05:35 -0000, Jordi Mas wrote:
> If you Google the sentence "times older than his son" you have more than
> 26.000 results, many of them on math sites.

You know just as well as I do, that "many people do it" doesn't make it
right :-) "Billions of flies eat shit, so we must eat shit too!"

> How 'John was 3 times older than his son.' is different from '"John was
> 3 times AS OLD AS his son"  in terms of meaning? Or the current sentence
> is broken in terms of grammar?

It is not grammatical. "Three times <what> older than his son"?
You can be "5 years older than his son", but "three times" is not some
quantity, it is simply incomplete.

The only thing it could mean, if it meant anything, is that the son is y
years old, and the father is "3 times y" years older, making him y + 3 y =
4 y years old.

Likewise, and worse, is people saying "this is three times cheaper". I
hope that such an expression doesn't occur in brainy.

Cheers,
-Olaf.
-- 
___ Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert  -- There's no point being grown-up if you 
\X/ rhialto/at/xs4all.nl    -- can't be childish sometimes. -The 4th Doctor

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/774142

Title:
  logic error in a logic puzzle