Timeline for Cut the price "by" or "to" or "in" half?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| Oct 7, 2022 at 8:15 | comment | added | Astralbee | @gotube It's a silly question because I've never heard anyone say that in all my 50 years of speaking English. If it helps you, take "the price is in two halves". I would understand that to mean there were two installments to pay. | |
| Oct 7, 2022 at 3:06 | comment | added | gotube♦ | @Astralbee Take, "The price was $10, but has been cut in half". Does that mean there are now two separate $5 prices? | |
| Oct 6, 2022 at 14:22 | comment | added | Thierry | @Astralbee Ok but you're wrong even though you worked in data analysis and sales (?) | |
| Oct 6, 2022 at 8:12 | comment | added | Astralbee | @Lambie I'm much happier to be downvoted on a right answer than upvoted for a wrong one. I'll die on any hill, as long as it's correct. | |
| Oct 5, 2022 at 20:17 | comment | added | MJD | A phrase being the most technically correct when you think about the implications does not make it "the idiomatic choice." | |
| Oct 5, 2022 at 19:54 | comment | added | fixer1234 | I think this is a situational case. I agree with your logic if you're talking about a single physical object. If you cut it in half, half does not disappear. But take a term like "sample size". That describes physical objects, but what's included is defined by how the term is applied. If you cut the sample size in half, you don't still have the other original half; you're redefined what's included. The same applies to something like price. Price isn't a fixed amount or object; it's whatever you say it is. If you cut it in half, that's the new price. | |
| Oct 5, 2022 at 15:18 | comment | added | Lambie | I actually agree with you. When you cut something in half, there are two things. But people do say informally, to cut the price in half. So, it depends on whom you are addressing and why. I really hate downvotes on answers like these. | |
| Oct 5, 2022 at 7:37 | history | edited | Astralbee | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 5, 2022 at 7:32 | comment | added | Astralbee | It might be used by some people, but it isn't the right choice if you think about it. | |
| Oct 4, 2022 at 14:58 | comment | added | gotube♦ | Colloquially, we use "cut in half" all the time with abstract concepts to mean "cut by half", regardless of what it would literally mean, words like like "prices/chances/odds/etc." | |
| Oct 4, 2022 at 8:45 | comment | added | Tristan | cutting prices in half is definitely used although I tend to associate it with the sort of melodramatic adverts you get for furniture store and used car sales you get on daytime tv. "In" does not necessarily mean both halves are usable either, one can cut a post in half (with a horizontal cut) and only the bottom half is still a post | |
| Oct 4, 2022 at 6:50 | history | answered | Astralbee | CC BY-SA 4.0 |