Expression 'Their noses are hundred times...'

[Tom]

Hi

Could you please tell me which one of the following sentences sounds better to you?

1- Their noses are hundred times more sensitive than those of humans.

2- Their noses are hundred times more sensitive than humans'.

Tom

[Torsten]

Hi Tom, in the first sentence you compare the noses of animals with noses of human beings. In the second sentence you compare the noses of animals with human beings which doesn't make much sense. By the way, I would put 'a' or 'one' before 'hundred times'. (a hundred times/one hundred times)
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[SkiIucK]

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

I prefer the first sentence (as long as you add "a"). The second sentence tends to be confusing.

Or you could just say this:

Their noses are a hundred times more sensitive than human noses/ones.

Amy
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Tom]

My thanks to all of you!

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

I think Torsten explained the confusion. Saying humans' simply sounds like a plural noun. The apostrophe is easy to miss, so humans' even tends to look like a plural noun.

This is quite different from saying Tom's. The proper noun (name) 'Tom' is not normally plural, so it's much more difficult to misunderstand Tom's. And since the apostrophe is before the "s", it also doesn't look like a plural.

In the case of your T-shirt sentences, I would prefer your second sentence this time.

The first T-shirt sentence is grammatically correct, but simply sounds weird. It's overkill.

Amy
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English