[mattmcknight]

I feel the opposite way about the English reading "5 times 3". In English, the subject comes first, so I would expect the sentence to mean take 5, use "times" as a verb, and 3 as the adverb. Likewise, if you read it as "5 multiplied by 3", you would expect to take five, three times.

[signal11]

Exactly. And this is why we use math operators rather than English terms for math operations. If you want to specifically mean 5 times a group of 3, define a new operator for it, like 5 ○ 3. Don't 'overload' the x operator with your own arbitrary meaning.

[chris_wot]

Ummm... I think you just overloaded the x operator yourself!