I found the following example sentence in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
According to this data, 780 vehicles were stolen, 26 per cent down on the previous year.
and wondering if it's correct to use "on" instead of "in"?
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We can use 'on' when discussing a change of something compared to a previous time period. I drank 3 litres of coke today, that's 0.5 litres up on yesterday, My brother earned $27,520 last year, $420 down on the year before.– Michael HarveyCommented Jul 31 at 8:07
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1As is so often the case in English, which preposition to use can be quite flexible. percent up on..., percent up from..., and percent up over... are all relatively common. but with percent down... we only see down on and down from - it's never percent down over last year. Of course, there's always percent up/down compared to last year.– FumbleFingersCommented Jul 31 at 12:33
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1"26% down on the figure for the previous year." On doesn't mean 'during the year'.– Kate BuntingCommented Jul 31 at 12:39
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on in that usage means "compared to". My American English ear hears it as informal though a British ear might hear it differently. This ngram returns zero results for large increase on previous; "over" is more mainstream. books.google.com/ngrams/…– TimRCommented Jul 31 at 17:25
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1 Answer
This is a comparison between the present year's figure and the entire previous year’s. This is fine.
Ludwig has lots of hits, like this one:
That's a sizable increase on previous years – two, rather than one per year – and a lot of people think something needs to be done.
answered Jul 31 at 8:03
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Thanks, @Lambie. Over is indeed quite common for up although not so for down: percent up on or over; percent down on or over Commented Aug 1 at 6:02