《经济学人》杂志（The Economist）用了three times as...than...和one third as...than...，这是不是需要改正的错误？
关于倍数比较句式中as和than的混搭
■倪肖丁
《经济学人》杂志（The Economist）2017年5月18日有这样一段话： The gap in
deaths from violence is particularly large: a tenfold or greater difference in
death rates between people in their early twenties in America and France, for
example. But young women in America are almost three
times as likely to die in a fatal car accident
than are women in Britain，France,
Germany and Sweden (which still leaves then less than one
third as likely to die in a crash than
American men of the same age).
有老师指出：这段话中的两个than应该改为as，因为两处都应是as…as结构。但文中用了as…than，所以than用错了。
作为一家有全球影响力的英文严肃期刊，《经济学人》真的会在短短一个段落两个紧挨的句中连续出现如此低级的错误吗？是粗心的编辑没有仔细审校并改正这一错误吗？
显然不是。
通常情况下我们使用as…as和more…than这种常见的比较句式，这一点是肯定的。但实际上，在倍数后用as…than的句法现象并不罕见。即使在现代英语正规出版物、严肃的学术论文和语言学著作中这样的用法也屡见不鲜。下面的例句摘自英语语法、惯用法专著和英文词典：
More than twice as many tons
of corrugated cardboard are recycled each year than
are tons of newspaper. (The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and
Style 2005)
Today more than twice as many
persons of Cook Islands ancestry live in New Zealand than
in the Cook Islands. （Britannica
Encyclopedia）
While further compounding the small numbers problem, there were
interesting differences between the two course types. For example, specialist
students of control were almost twice as
likely to be in work than those pursuing
control in conversion mode.（LGSWE）
It cost five times as much to
obtain a customer than to keep one.
(LDOCE-Example Bank)
More than twice as many tons
of corrugated cardboard are recycled each year than
[are tons of] newspaper. (The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and
Style 2005)
在英语教师进修教程What English
Language Teachers Need to Know（Volume I）一书也采用as...than...句式行文，例如作者在论述英语学习对移民就业和收入的重要影响时写道：
