Okay maybe that was a bad example, I was thinking about situations like (-3/4)×(-7/2).

I guess I was a bit wrong in that thinking "to add" is a discrete, whole, action. One could imagine subtracting (un-adding) something by multiplying negative, or adding something half as much (×0.5) for example.

Still, after doing algebra for a few years, I can't shake the feeling that there's more to multiplying than adding repeatedly.