If I'm talking about a promotional offer that one can take advantage of more than once within a given period, should I say "The offer can apply multiple times" or "The offer can be applied multiple times"?
Is there anything unusual about "can apply multiple times"?
I've found a few Google hits like the following:
Select this check box if the offer can apply multiple times. This is normally used for duration discounts when the contract says that for each block of 7 nights the customer gets one free.
http://downloads.dolphind.com/training/traininglibrarybmm/Product Database User Guide – Land.pdf
The promotional offer cannot be used cumulatively with customer conditions. Only one offer can apply.
The offer will not apply or be extended outside of the promotional date or uplift date ranges.
http://www.sustaingain.co.nz/Content/PhaSedNQST&Cs.pdf
These come from a British and a New Zealand business, respectively.
Could this be a British thing, given that New Zealand is a member of the British Commonwealth?
I'd appreciate your help.
Best Answer
Now, after sticking to my guns with correct language use based of semantics, I need to make a caveat. I found an example of a certainly native-English-speaking corporation that uses the phrase "an offer can be applied" (though only once). It happens to be Amazon in its how-to for promotional codes. Note that when the process is described, the how-to shows where to enter a promotional code (not offer) and then click "apply." You can't enter an offer into a field. The phrase in question (the questionable phrase) appears further down amidst a whole lot of legalese. The thing is, the document specifically defines, for the purposes of the document, what the word "offer" will mean for the purposes of this particular document, and it's one heck of a intricate ball of attributes: "promotional claim code offer."
And where the "offer is applied", it is an example of catachresis, that is, a semantic error. It can be used by native speakers, sometimes as high literature—there it would be a deliberate "skewing" of the language landscape for poetic purposes, like the example in the Wikipedia article, "Mow the beard, Shave the grass."
This is not a reason, however, to expect a phrase like "My wife wants me to mow my beard" to be okayed for everyday use.
Which is why answers both on wordreference and here were suggesting to substitute something else either for "offer" ("promo code"), or for "applied" ("be used").
The correct semantics of this, I have detailed in the discussion to my previous answer.
An important factor in what to use in a language is established usage. Established usage is that it's the promo codes and the discounts that are "applied", overwhelmingly. The possibility of buying something with such a discount is an offer by a company, which is a meta-term, and it would be a semantic/stylistical mistake to use it metonymically.
The correct usage would be "This 20% sale is a nice offer by this company. You can take advantage of it by using a promo code. You apply it in your shopping cart when checking out".
Awkward language happens to all native speakers, especially when an intersection of legal matters and software use is involved.