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by ghaff 567 days ago
I sat on the unofficial style committee at a company I used to work for. I guess one of our also unofficial tenets was that usages that people regularly used incorrectly or were regularly incorrectly interpreted should be avoided--even if you're "technically" correct in using them. It's the written language equivalent to not using parentheses and depending on people applying, especially less common, precedence operations in code.

So no, not just your pet peeve. I personally hate 100% increase and that sort of thing. Even if I know the correct interpretation, I have no idea if the writer did.

2 comments

> usages that people regularly used incorrectly or were regularly incorrectly interpreted should be avoided

Lordy, YES. A successful business must have good communication. Not people saying "actually, I was right, but ...".

Well "100% increase" is unlikely to have been written by a mistaken writer. It's any number above 100% where it's possible the writer made an error.
And doubled would be even simpler. Yes 100% is probably mostly unambiguous but I'm certainly unsure about 131%.