1

Advertising has flourished under these new conditions. It has multiplied in volume, in prestige and respect. The perils have increased many fold. Just because the gamble has become a science, the speculation a very conservative business.

Source: Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins

He is saying that the volume and respect of advertising has increased, and the gamble has become a science. But I do not understand the last part of that sentence or perils have increased many fold.

Improve this question
2
  • First, you need to tell users if they have understood your problem and if their answers have been helpful. If they have, you can upvote their contributions or accept the best answer. Click on the grey checkmark, it will turn green, and the author will receive 15 points. You, the OP, will get 2 points. Secondly, please do not write "Help me understand this sentence/paragraph" in titles, it is meaningless, the text could be anything. Please create more specific titles. Thanks.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 22, 2020 at 15:30
  • @Mari-LouA Hi. I hope you are fine. I upvoted the question. You edited it very well.
    – Marios Athanasiou
    Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 6:07

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
1

It is ungrammatical and a mistake in the source. I've looked at the orginial and I think that the error in grammar is so bad that there is no way to guess what the intended meaning was.

Improve this answer
1
  • Please avoid serial voting. That is voting repeated over and over again. This is not allowed. The system will detect and reverse serial voting. @MariosAthanasiou
    – James K
    Commented Oct 26, 2023 at 6:07
0

If you have quoted the sentence completely, it is incomplete, with two subordinate clauses but no independent clause.

Just because the gamble has become a science [and just because] the speculation [has become] a very conservative business, it is now ....

The words that follow "business" are missing, and they are the main thought

Improve this answer
3
  • The quote is copied perfectly, the OP made no mistake (see the source) but I agree, it is confusing/written poorly.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 22, 2020 at 15:25
  • @Mari-LouA Thank you for pointing out that the OP did quote the original exactly. Whatever thought was intended was marred in its utterance, and no wonder the OP was confused. We can guess at plausible meanings, but with little confidence that our guesses match the intention.
    – Jeff Morrow
    Commented Aug 22, 2020 at 23:55
  • It says earlier in the text Advertising was a gamble, a speculation of the rashest sort. Clearly the writer is using gamble and speculation interchangeably. I agree the text Just because ... very conservative business is syntactically disastrous, but i'd put that down to a trivial proofreading error. Specifically, the two words Just because should be deleted. And personally, I'd discard one of the synonyms: The gamble has become a science, a very conservative business. Perfectly clear, and effectively summarizes several preceding / following sentences.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 22 at 23:29
0

I think the idea is that advertisers used to be free to try anything because nobody really knew what would work until they tried it. But today, we (mostly) understand what works and what doesn’t, so there is less tolerance (and more peril) for mistakes or failure, forcing them to be more conservative.

Improve this answer
0

Just because the gamble has become a science, the speculation a very conservative business.

appears to be an elliptical form of:

Just because the gamble has become a science, the speculation [has become] a very conservative business.

That is, its becoming a science has by itself eliminated all but the most conservative speculation.

Improve this answer
2
  • The questioner states that in the post. The question iz about the phrase many fold.
    – Chenmunka
    Commented Sep 17, 2022 at 6:32
  • @Chenmunka. The question's Title is "What does the “…speculation a very conservative business” mean?", and that's what I answered. If the Title doesn't match what the question "iz" about, then edit the Question, Title, or both so that they are asking the same question.
    – Ray Butterworth
    Commented Sep 17, 2022 at 14:01
0

A two-fold increase means the original is increased by multiplying it by two. Likewise for a ten-fold increase (multiply by ten), etc.

A many fold (or many-fold) increase means the original is increased to many times its original size or number. In this example the perils are now many times greater than they were in the past.

Improve this answer
2
  • Manyfold in this sense is usually one word or might be hyphenated, which is a bit confusing.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Oct 19, 2022 at 13:50
  • @StuartF Amended! thanks. Not to be confused with manifold!
    – Peter
    Commented Oct 20, 2022 at 0:49

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .