I think my brother would empathise with Anderson. When he worked in reprographics an architect came in and asked for his drawing to be ‘reduced by 300%’. He politely had to explain that 300% was three times larger, not any amount smaller. And a long conversation ensued where he had to try an extract exactly what he wanted
reduced by 30% – ie 70% of the original size? No.
30% of the original size? No.
reduced by a third? reduced to a third of the size? No
1/300th of the original size? No.
Eventually his boss joined in, siding with the customer “look, its simple, just reduce it by 300%”
Eventually he just scanned it and printed it out exactly half size handed it over and that, apparently, was exactly what was asked for.