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A comment on I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of dollars. Parent comment

Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by veqq on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @07:22PM (#45817560)
In English, x or time(s) after a number marks a "unit" used by various verbs. A 10x increase. Increase by 10x. Go up 10x. Some of these verbs are negative like decrease or save. "Save 10x" is the same as "divide by 10". Four times less, 5 times smaller etc. are long attested.
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Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by adammarples on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @07:41PM (#45817695)
No, x literally means multiply. It doesn't somehow also mean divide. They should use the percent sign, it's what it is for. 10x my costs means 10 x mycost, it's literally an equation
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Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by veqq on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @08:19PM (#45817931)
It's just inversion, like 2 to the power of 2 or 2 to the power of negative 2. These negative words inverse it just the same. You may dislike it, but millions of people have spoken this way for a long time.

> x literally means multiply

And some use the dot operator or even 2(3) or (2)(3). When programming, we tend to use *.

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Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by adammarples on Thursday November 06, 2025 @07:32AM (#45834501)
Nobody says times to mean divide. The word "negative" is what is doing the inversion for you in your example.
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Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by jaredhallen on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @07:44PM (#45817726)
Agree to disagree.
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Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by ffsm8 on Wednesday November 05, 2025 @12:14AM (#45819422)
It's basically multiplication with fractions, just like you get 1/4 from 1/2 * 1/2, which is once again a multiplication that turns into division

I agree that it's a suboptimal and click baity way to phrase it though...

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Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by imp0cat on Wednesday November 05, 2025 @02:30AM (#45820345)
Exactly, it's multiplication.

Example: He was saving $10 every month before the change. Then he switched and now he is saving 10 x $10, ie $100 every month.

But that's not the case here, right? And that's why the parent post is correct.

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Re:I took all my projects off the cloud, saving thousands of... by happymellon on Wednesday November 05, 2025 @02:45AM (#45820444)
Thats not how English works.

Saved 10x would imply there was an amount being saved that they multipled.

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