(I’m going to do this post in pounds so that I don’t have to escape dollar signs everywhere. But the currency doesn’t matter.)
“Per cent” is, literally, “for each hundred”. Imagine making a literal pile of money from the cost of the item, and splitting it up into stacks of £100. So if the item costs £500, you have five stacks.
Now, a discount that’s “ten pounds” means just that: take £10 out of the pile (any stack, it doesn’t matter) and put it back in your wallet.
But “ten per cent” means £10 out of *every single one* of those stacks. For five stacks, that’s £50 I get to keep! I’d rather have that discount.
What if the price is only £100, though? In that case, there’s only one stack, and “£10 from one stack” and “£10 from every stack” mean the same thing.
*Below* £100, the intuition is a little bit trickier, because you have to imagine the 10% case as taking “part of” £10 from a stack that’s “part of” £100. But it’s not an insurmountable hurdle to envision that, and grasp that it won’t be as good as taking out a full £10.
Tim Pederick
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2023-04-26T08:45:50Z (12 months ago)