убывать в несколько раз

16:09 Aug 28, 2013 

I'm not arguing for the points and don't want them. Please don't select my answer as most helpful. Thanks.

16:47 Aug 23, 2013 

Anyways, a friend of mine from New York just said that words such as twofold, threefold etc. always imply an increase in something. You can't say “decreased tenfold”—that's not standard AE.

06:28 Aug 23, 2013 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fold
3fold
verb
Definition of FOLD
transitive verb
1
: to lay one part over another part of <fold a letter>
2
: to reduce the length or bulk of by doubling over <fold a tent>
That means "decrease several-fold" is kinda normal English, ladies and gents

18:37 Aug 22, 2013 

But hey, no one should feel *forced* to use phrases like that. Unless you produce or consume scientific writing, you don't have to suffer this silliness. But if that's your line of work, you might as well jump on the bandwagon.

Here's one more example that'll make you cringe: manyfold.

Although the 2.1-kb sequence was present in both meiotic and postmeiotic testicular cell types, it decreased manyfold in late haploid cells.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4022010

****Author: SH Waters****

18:21 Aug 22, 2013 

Once again you drag in that preposition, 'by'. I realize that in English you usually subtract from values instead of dividing values. But it doesn't have to be that way, as long as you don't use 'by'. Simples! (c) Compare the Meerkat

18:18 Aug 22, 2013 

Yes, I am ignoring it. In English you can increase by "fold", but you can't decrease by "fold" because one-fold gets you to zero.
So: increased ten-fold, but decreased by 90%. You can't "decrease x-fold" or "decrease by x-fold"
It's an old question on Proz that keeps coming back.

18:15 Aug 22, 2013 

read this discussion. It's quite interesting:
http://www.proz.com/kudoz/English/science_general/1627758-de...

18:10 Aug 22, 2013 

You keep arguing against "decrease by smth" but no one here has offered that option other than yourself.

18:08 Aug 22, 2013 

The term in question implies at least a 50% decrease (but more likely it's about ~80%), whereas “by tens of percent” includes 30% and 40% and other numbers below 50.

18:08 Aug 22, 2013 

Thanks for support from the Russian side! There is a problem here though: it's standard European usage (not just Russian) and it's visible in English as well (particularly "decreased by ten times", which is comprehensible, even if it does grate on my ears and eyes). It's a different way of looking at the numbers, and I'm not sure that a literal translation of "decreased by 90%" would sound natural to Russian or German ears.

18:03 Aug 22, 2013 

Yes, that would work, but it sounds odd. Why would anybody say that? And I would say that would cover a drop from 20% to 90%, which is too broad. To my surprise there are some examples when I google "decrease * tens of percent". Here is one: In recent years there has been a decrease of tens of percent in complaints filed against Border Policemen...
And another: the indentation of large organic molecules surface (Appendices of the Hertz problem), results in the measured height decrease by several tens of percent.

18:01 Aug 22, 2013 

“By several times” and “several-fold” just make me cringe. And translating it as “by tens of percent” would be too vague and somewhat inaccurate.

17:40 Aug 22, 2013 

what do you think about translating it as "decreases by tens of percent"?

17:36 Aug 22, 2013 

You can't render this literally in English. It's woolly in the Russian, and incomprehensible in English. I think you have to say something like "decreases sharply", and I'm dubious about the tense. It's probably "decreased sharply".

e.g. The incidence of smallpox decreased sharply in the first half of the 20th century.

17:14 Aug 22, 2013