I can't work out if........................

[ChristmasTrulyReigns]

"Save up to half price."

is a grammatically correct sentence?

Every time I see this (or similar) my pedantic heckles prickle, but I can't explain why it sets me off.

No pedants around?

I have an urge to add some hyphens:

Save up-to-half price.

Any better?

Hmmm, still not sure.

But better than the un-hyphenated version.

how about "Save up to half-price" ?

up to are words that exist in isolation happily to each other, but half needs the direct connection to price, via the hyphen.

I am with Pan

I think I'm just struggling with whether you can save a price.

Yes. To both points. I mean, I agree with you both.

I love Pedants' Corner.

Save - up to half price!

That would be my take on it, for what it's worth ...

The point of pendants' corner is to have an opinion, and to express it! Sitting on a figurative fence just will not do!!

Save up to half the price?

Nooo! half and price need a relationship.

But surely "half-price" with the hyphen is actually an adjective, not a noun, and, therefore, not something that can be saved? "Half price" without a hyphen is meaningless.

jkklpu - of needs putting in there.

crumbs yes. You are right.

It's nowhere near as bad as Better than half-price.

How did I not know there was a Pedants' corner here? I mean, of course there should be, it fits in, but had no idea.

I shall think about what might sound better while the mint aero rolls around in my tummy.

Perhaps 'Up to 50% off' is slightly better, although maybe some people find the maths hard.

I was going to say "save up to half of the original price"- doesn't fit so well on a sign though, does it?!

Actually, I don't even like the "save"- you're not really "saving" anything- you are spending less.

Tied myself in knots here- what's wrong with just "half price!"

Hslf price is gud. Saves at least 50% of signage.

or half even..

It can't be a simple '50% off' as usually it means one or two of the 504525401245475 products in this section are actually half price.

It's slippery sales talk.

Save [some of the money you might have spent if we hadn't reduced the prices of these items, yet you had bought them anyway]. [Some of the aforementioned products will be] up to [50% of the original price, which meant that you may be charged an amount equivalent to] half price [however, the prices of many products will have been reduced by much less than this].

Something like that?

Sorry, but as this is pedant's corner, shouldn't the title be "I can't work out whether?"

Would you be happier with 'Save up to half the price'? Sometimes the definite article makes a lot of difference.

I'm not sure that's true, inthesticks. "whether" requires the context to be a dilemma, ie "I can't work out whether it's raining or not", whereas "if" doesn't- you can say "I can't work out if it's raining". So it all depends on what would come after the ".............".

The thing that bugs me about these "save" offers is that you could only save anything at all if you would have considered buying the damn thing at full price, which no sane person would normally do.