Reply To: What would you say

[Kerin]

😅 You were right! Never trust a native speaker when it comes to grammar!

I should point out (just to be clear!) that it is correct to say ‘How much?’ in this situation because you are checking a number that you didn’t catch.

However, you couldn’t say for example: By how much percent did the sales rise?

Instead you would say: What percent(age) did the sales rise by?

‘Percent’ relates to an entity being divided into 100 equal parts and taking a portion of those parts as a measured amount. Percent IS that amount.

“How many/much percent of” makes no standard English sense. In other words ‘Percent’ itself relates to a single measure, therefore it cannot be ‘many’!

That’s why you can say “WHAT percent[age] of [an entity]….”. So, if you say ‘Half’ then that is “50 percent”.

Hope that is clear!