I'm not sure why but using X instead of the word "times" annoys me. Probably because one of the first things I got taught at university is that mathematical notation is not prose and shouldn't be used as such.

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spiderfarmer a day ago | parent | next [-]

But what about “got taught” instead of “was taught” and the missing comma before “but”?

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shiandow a day ago | parent [-]

Well they didn't teach me English. Or in English for that matter.

And I don't think I've ever used the Oxford comma.

There was probably some rule about not beginning sentences with Or and And but you probably know better than I.

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wccrawford a day ago | parent | next [-]

Different cultures have different norms and rules. I think you're saying that, in your native language, they taught you not to use mathematical notation in prose.

They didn't teach you that about English, though. It's quite common to write "21x" for "21 times" in English and is pretty much universally understood and accepted by native speakers.

	▲	sorenjan 21 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The first time I heard anyone pronounce 2X as "two ex" instead of "two times" was Steve Jobs in one of his presentation.
	▲	shiandow a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's a more general rule about when and where to use mathematical notation. Though style rules do differ in places. For what it's worth I've not seen "12x" in formal contexts, but if that is proper then the times symbol still shouldn't be styled as part of the maths formula imho.

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jabron a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The Oxford comma is the comma before the conjunction in a list of three or more terms, e.g. "one, two, and three". I think your sentence actually didn't need a comma anway.

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cubefox a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I wonder whether "10" in "10×" also counts as mathematical notation. Or if just "ten times" is allowed.

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shiandow a day ago | parent [-]

Technically yes, but quoting mathematical constants is definitely allowed. You could also say O(N) times for instance. The kind of language that is discouraged is writing "therefore efficiency increases by O(log(N)) times" as "∴ efficiency increases by O(log(N)) *".

For one it simply looks like you forgot to finish the formula.

	▲	cubefox 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I particularly dislike Greek letters, because I don't know how to pronounce them in my head. For "×" you at least know it's supposed to read "times".