[globnomulous]

"Reduce by 97%" is simple, clear, and accurate.

"Reduce 33x" and "make 33x smaller" are ambiguous, unclear, and inaccurate. Is something that's "33x smaller" or "reduced 33x" 1/33 of the original total or is it 1/34? The question can't be answered in the absence of more information.

These are common expressions, sure. They're also awful, belonging to the same category of error as:

* The price is expensive

* It's a good-quality piece

* All but one of my friends speaks like this.

* Here's an author whom we know cares about language.

* As well, this is how some people write.

That is, they're the errors of a normal native speaker.

[mgraczyk]

It's 1/33, I don't see how it could be 1/34. Nobody would ever make that mistake and it wouldn't matter, close enough

[globnomulous]

I gather you don't particularly care (that's essentially your point), but in case you really do want to know how it could be 1/34, and why some weirdo would insist that it does or can, I wrote up the following. :)

Is "1x smaller" equivalent to "1x larger?" If it is, then 'it's 1/33' and "2x larger/more" means the same thing as "double the size/amount." But if you have two times more than I have, then you have what I have, plus 2x that amount. So you don't have two times as much as I have. You have three times as much. "2x larger," to my ear, clearly does not mean the same thing as "2x as much." "2x larger" should mean "3x as much." That's why "33x smaller" can be read as "1 part of 34."

When we're even stricter with sense, the expression "33x smaller" becomes completely incoherent, because 1x should represent the original quantity. A 33x reduction should give us a result of -32x.

Obviously that's not what the article means. It's what the words mean, though, when you read them literally mean, rather than reading past their literal meaning to the intentions of the speaker/writer.

Most people don't care whether someone means one thing or the other, because, as you wrote, it's close enough to give the general idea.

The problem that fussy people like me and the commenter above me have is that we want people to say what they mean. And I'd wager that most of us fussy people have to do more mental work in order to get to the result that other people reach intuitively. Having to ignore literal sense in order to read someone's intended meaning is harder for us/me than it is for most people. That's our/my problem. As a matter of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, we're wrong, because literal meaning takes a back seat to idiomatic usage. (It probably does even in this comment that I'm writing.)

That's why I said these are the errors of a normal, native speaker.

[mgraczyk]

Sorry but your explanation is not self consistent. It works for "2x more" but not "2x larger". Those are two different words that mean two different things

[globnomulous]

Yes, those are two different words, and like many sets of two words, their meanings aren't identical. High five.

If you believe "2x more" and "2x larger" represent two different arithmetic expressions, such that (I assume) one of them means "3x" and the other means "2x," then you must have a much more advanced understanding or the language and of arithmetic than I have. Go with God, and good luck.

[mgraczyk]

Yes they do mean two different things in this context.

It's completely unambiguous and universally understood by people who work on efficiency.