Mario Freitas (asker) May 12, 2014:

I see more people agree with "per". Thankfully, as I have replaced all occurrences with "per" as I thought it would be better for a formal document. You're right Charles: most poeple would not say it that way naturally. I'll leave it with "per" then. Thank you all!

Paulinho Fonseca May 12, 2014:

Well, Charles, I had my say and agree with you 100 times per posting. :-)

Charles Davis May 12, 2014:

All a question of register There probably aren't many native speakers who would spontaneously say "X times per day" in informal speech, but that's not really the criterion here. On balance, in formal written English, "per" is more suitable, in my view.

VERLOW WOGLO JR May 12, 2014:

Business/Technical: 100 per day, per annum, etc. usage: per meaning “for each” occurs chiefly in technical or statistical contexts: miles per gallon; cost per person. It is also common in sports commentary: 16 points per quarter. A or an is often considered more suitable in nontechnical use. See: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/per

Mario Freitas (asker) May 12, 2014:

Indeed, Richard, If a document is revised 10 times, you'll have 10 different documents with the same number of changes. And I've also replaced all "commencements" with "beginnings". As I said, I've only done some find & replace so far; the job is yet to begin.

Richard Purdom May 12, 2014:

and sorry to labour a point Mario, but you should change the order of that first sentence to make it consistent with the rest, and drop 'commencement' which is formalíssimo...
The ambient temperature and air saturation (dew point) shall be measured prior to the start of every workshift and three more times during the day.
And the fact is, every single translator is going to do it differently, which gives every proofreader ample opportunity to redline the text with track changes...

Mario Freitas (asker) May 12, 2014:

Yes, folks I haven't really done the job, yet. I simply used find & replace and changed all "times a day" to "times per day". So all these other issues are still to be reviewed. Thank you.

Georgia Morg (X) May 12, 2014:

agree with richard I was going to point out the need to change "along the day" to "during" too. I would change all the pers to "a" day

Richard Purdom May 12, 2014:

As a native speaker, I can't define the difference. It also crops up with once a year/month etc., and there is the other variant for odd quantities such as 'once every three months'. The proofreader might be right, but the difference, which I have difficulty seeing, is minimal and not worth worrying about. However... 'along the day' should certainly be 'during the day', 'coating application' needs 'The' at the front, and I use 'shall' for actions that people must do, not for required results... e.g. 'The finishing must result in near-white metal', so there you go!

Mario Freitas (asker) May 12, 2014:

This is a Vale Technical Specification, So I thought it would be more formal. This type of document is submitted to equipment vendors all over the world. I'm not sure it should be soooo formal. But I've changeds all occurrences to "per day" anyway. Here's a stretch, Anitsa:

• Prior to the commencement of every workshift, and three more times along the day, the ambient temperature and air saturation (dew point) shall be measured;
• The presence of chlorine compounds shall be verified four times per day;
• The abrasive material used in blast cleaning shall be inspected once per day;
• Cleanliness of all pipes shall be verified, using comparison plates or photographs. The clean-up finishing shall result in near white metal. The cleaning level shall be repeated at least four times per day;
• The anchoring profile shall be measured four times per day in randomly chosen pipes;
• Coating application temperature shall be verified with a thermopen or infrared thermometer, at least four times per day;
• Visual inspection of the coating four times per day;
• Viscosity of the powder resin viscosity shall be tested twice per day, and whenever a new resin batch is used;
• The cured coat’s thickness shall be measured at specified inte

Paulinho Fonseca May 12, 2014:

A colocação da Teresa procede, 'per day' sounds more formal.

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida May 12, 2014:

Mário Porque os documentos da União Europeia tendem a ser muito formais, fiz uma pesquisa em site:europa.eu sem que pudesse chegar a uma conclusão definitiva. Nestas coisas não me costumo fiar em estatísticas, mas aqui vai: 7.360 resultados para "times per day" e 391.000 resultados para "times a day", nalguns casos ambos os termos foram usados pela mesma fonte (EMA, EMCDDA...), mas concordo que "per day" é mais formal.

Anitsa May 12, 2014:

Yes, that's the basic rule. Could you give us an excerpt of the doc?

Douglas Bissell May 12, 2014:

Verbally I would always say 'a day', as 'per' sounds very formal. Just out of interest "times a day" on Google gets 128 million hits while "times per day" gets just 23 million. It really depends on the formality of the document and who the readers are going to be

Andrew Bramhall May 12, 2014:

Both are permissible but the most frequently used option would be '100 times a day';