Multiply (x 2)
Posted in Linguistic Annoyances, Modern Life Is Rubbish at 2:00 pm on 5 November 2009
Yesterday for the first time in ages I caught Countdown on Channel 4.
Jeff Stelling doesn’t seem right to me (but a lot better than Des O’Connor anyway.)
But the numbers game! The replacement for Carol Vorderman said “times it by.” Times it by!
She’s a grown woman, presumably with a Maths degree or something involving Maths at least.
She should know there is no such verb as “times it by.” It’s multiply.
Susie Dent in dictionary corner ought to be correcting her.
[Carol Vorderman also annoyed me with the way she set out the arithmetic as she would write things like:-
100/50 = 2 x 6 = (12 + 1) x 25 = 325. The "new" woman (I'm sorry, I don't know her name) did this sort of thing too.
Now, 100/50 = 2. It does not equal 2 x 6.
2 x 6 = 12; not (12 + 1) x 25.
It might seem like a little thing .......
but I get faced with such arithmetical rubbish on almost a daily basis in my day job.
Don't give the pupils any excuse, please.]
