General Question: Usage of decrease in size versus smaller

[kulkarnim]

Hello Folks,

Can you please confirm if decrease in size is wrong usage and we should use term smaller. For example: when i want to say something about the size of the animal, i would use smaller or greater rather than increase or decrease. Say fish is smaller in size or fish will decrease in size? What is correct?

My sincere apologies if i am posting this question in wrong forum. In that case, please point me out and i will ensure to move this.

Thanks
Mangesh

[Chelsey Cooley]

Both "smaller" and "decrease" could be correct, but in some sentences, they would create different meanings. All of these sentences are fine, to the best of my knowledge:

The salmon in this river have become smaller since last year. (= They used to be a certain size, now they're smaller than that.)
The size of the salmon has decreased significantly. (= They used to be a certain size, now they're smaller than that.)
This salmon is smaller than that one. (= The size of the salmon hasn't necessarily changed, but it's smaller than the one we're comparing it to.)

[RonPurewal]

please remember that, at the end of the day, this is a GMAT forum. the questions posted here should pertain directly to some GMAT-related problem.

this exam tests a VERY narrow band of the things that can potentially go wrong in formal written english. thus, if a generic question is posted (without reference to a GMAT problem), it will almost certainly be /1/ far too open-ended, /2/ irrelevant to the exam, or /3/ both.

i think it's safe to assume that this question is inspired by some problem. (it's highly unlikely that you were thinking, completely at random, 'Hmm, how can I write about fish that are getting smaller?')
so, please post the problem (and cite the original source), as per the forum rules.
thanks.