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I heard the following sentence on YouTube, and don't get the meaning of "as":

Despite only being around the same size as just California, Spain has more than five times the amount of high-speed rail lines "as" the entirety of the US combined has.
(source)

I guess this could be the second 'as' in an "as ~ as" clause. The first one is omitted, and the full sentence seems to be like this:

Despite only being around the same size as just California, Spain has more than five times "as" the amount of high-speed rail lines "as" the entirety of the US combined has.

Do I get it correct, and is it okay to omit the first as here?

Joachim
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KinoShita
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1 Answers1

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This is not correct usage. If they had said "...five times as many ... as the entirety of the US", that would be correct. But "...five times the amount ... as the entirety of the US" is incorrect.

Another version that would be correct is "... five times the amount ... that the entirety of the US has", with "that" instead of "as". (In careful usage, it should also be "number" here rather than "amount".)

We can omit the first "as" in phrases like "he was (as) pleased as punch", "I was (as) mad as hell".

We cannot omit "as" when using multipliers to express relationships. We say "twice as tall as the house", never "twice tall as the house". We say "five times as much", never "five times much".

We can say "five times more" but if we want to link it to what it's more than, we say "than", not "as" — "he had five times more sugar than she did".

We can also say "five times the amount", but if we want to link it to what it's greater than, we then use "that", with a full clause after it, not "than" or "as" — "she ate three times the amount of rice that he did".

rjpond
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  • Thanks for your answer.

    Just so I'm clear, the original one (Despite only being around the same size as just California, Spain has more than five times the amount of high-speed rail lines "as" the entirety of the US combined has.) is incorrect according to your answer, and it should be rephrased as "... has more than five times the number...that the entirety of the US has"?

     – KinoShita Apr 01 '23 at 14:48
  • Yes. (You can also add the word "combined" back in, if you like, but it's not really needed.) – rjpond Apr 01 '23 at 19:14