I disagree. Twice as short would be half the length if you asked me (same as twice as long, in a glass half empty, half full situation).

In a similar but different example, if you have a 1000 word essay and you cut it to 500 words, you could make it twice as short again by cutting it to 250 words.

That’s because you wrote something different than the other comment.

Twice as short != twice shorter

And the second version is just wrong.

I don’t understand twice shorter – how would you use it in context?

I think my example stands

OK, either I don’t understand you or you don’t understand me, because that’s what I’m also saying?

Your example “twice as short” works.

The original comment wasn’t about your example.

The original comment was “several times shorter”.

As you used twice in place of several times, I also put twice in there to make the difference to yours more obvious.

Twice shorter isnt the same as twice as short. You talked in your first comment about something different than the other comments talked about. That is what I wanted to express.

I don’t think we understand each other.

To me, several times shorter makes perfect sense, and twice as short is a special case, where it is two times as short. Thus, several times shorter includes:

• two times shorter == twice as short
• 1.5 times shorter == 1.5 times as short
• five times shorter == five times as short
• several times shorter == several times as short (the “as short” construction sounds clunky to me here in this case)

As i write these out, i realize what you were trying to say: X times shorter is equivalent to X times as short for me, so equivalent that I didn’t realize when I was using one or the other.

You are saying that for some people, the “X times shorter” construction doesn’t sound natural. I can respect that, but it doesn’t seem like a part of mainstream English to me at least.

“Twice shorter” isn’t what anyone is talking about. That isn’t how you combine the words, at least to me.

Language is generally workable if it communicates the intended message. In that sense, I acknowledge that it is generally understood what something means, but not always.

However, it is semantic gibberish, and fuck anyone who supports that gibberish.

But yes, it’s fine enough in the same way that when someone says “could of” we know they meant “could’ve” or “could have”. It doesn’t make it correct. And it is still grating.

Two asshats disagreed with my comment above enough to downvote. This is also grating because it means they actively support WRONG. And it is WRONG.

It’s fine, but it is irritating when people are willfully ignorant.

Could of is gibberish, i agree with you there.

But making something twice as short makes perfect sense to me. However short it is now, make it half that size.

What is the confusion?