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by lolinder 405 days ago
In colloquial English my construction is just fine, but sure, you'd be welcome to pick longer too.

Some examples of my usage in the wild ("response times may be slower" is present verbatim on each page):

https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy/discussions/8133

https://www.ameristarstaffingny.com/the-negative-effects-of-...

https://oci.wi.gov/Pages/Regulation/Bulletin20200320Regulato...

https://playrix.helpshift.com/hc/en/27-questbound/faq/13930-...

2 comments

This sentence is a good example where the native speaker's version is worse (in this case because it's just non-sense, as the parent commenter already pointed out).
This is normal and accepted English, at least in the USA.

And in English, the word “worse” requires a comparative compliment . Worse than what? Maybe you meant worse than a non-native speaker, but because you didn’t say it, your sentence sounds off.

In English time can have lots of lengths. Any number of English novels have the phrase “a long minute”. People talk about time passing slowly or quickly. We say things like “The last 15 minutes took hours!” Or “Today went by so fast.”

Just because the word “sunrise” is nonsense scientifically doesn’t mean it’s not understood and correct to use in English.

Sounds like you're the kind of person who will insist to Spanish speakers that a double negative is logically incoherent. Good luck with that approach to language!
> In colloquial English my construction is just fine,

Maybe. However, in my opinion, it’s better to write in such a way that leaves zero chance for misunderstanding.

No real human being would misunderstand because, as you note, time can't go slower. This is just an excuse for pedantry.