EDIT: you guys have dug up some truly horrible pisstakes :D Thank you for those.
To the serious folk - relax a little. This is Mildly Infuriating, not I'm dying if this doesn't stop. As a non-native speaker I was taught a certain way to use the language. The rules were not written down by me, nor the teachers - it was done by the native folk. Peace!
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Ok so, as a native English speaker, let me inform you, that whatever you think is a rule in English, isn’t. It’s a guideline. It’s a hard language because we lack structure. The native teachers are teaching you the basic guidelines, not actual conversational English, which varies heavily on location, and social group.
English definitely has rules.
It’s why you can’t say something like “girl the will boy the paid” to mean “the boy is paying the girl” and have people understand you.
Less vs fewer, though, isn’t really a rule. It’s more an 18th century style guideline some people took too seriously.
Holy shit, you broke so many comma usage rules in your first sentence alone!
Ok[] so, as a native english speaker, let me inform you[,] that whatever you think is a rule in english[,] isn’t.
i count 3.
out of 4 commas placed, it’s not great, but i was expecting closer to a dozen from your comment.
common usage is not the enemy
Confusion is the enemy of communication. Clarity of language is critical to being understood. Correctly using “fewer” and “less” could theoretically provide context clues about what type of thing you’re counting, but you will be understood irregardless of which word you choose to use.
irregardless
You did that on purpose didn’t you.
The intrusive thoughts won. Sorry.
For all intents and purposes this comment triggered me
The topic peaked my interest.
They should be using ‘sass’
I’m doing good.
Well, you bastard. You’re doing well!!!
Hmm, I’m fewer sure of that.
The thing I find interesting is how the mixing of less and fewer, is broadly accepted, whereas nobody tends to use ‘much’ and ‘many’ interchangeably.
I’m not quite sure why much/many is do conserved when fewer/less isn’t.
That’s kinda easy though because much fewer people use less then many.
Less then many?
So to use that in a sentence “I have less many testicles than the average cat”
*then
*than
*thon
*now?
I like to use “not much” instead of “not many” whenever I can.
gonna start saying “not many” when people ask me “what’s up”
I refuse to acknowledge anyone’s struggle with common words like that except lose and loose.
Unlike less and fewer which are basically interchangeable unless you’re being pedantic lose and loose are two completely different words entirely
I wish humans created fewer pollution.
Change pollution to pollutants and it works.
That’s exactly the point. There’s nothing pedantic about acknowledging the difference. “Fewer” is for a countable number of things like “pollutants”, and “less” is for uncountable things like “pollution”. It’s not hard.
I counter your refusal with my refusal of your refusal.
Your post is fewer than 60 minutes old.
Arguably, that is correct: “minute” is a countable noun, so should take “fewer” as a modifier.
Yeah it is grammatically correct but most people would say “less than 5 minutes ago” or “less than 50 seconds”, instead of using “fewer than”.
Yeah the inconsistencies are interesting.
Is it because of the “than”? Do we just not like saying “fewer than”? Because it wouldn’t offend my ear to hear “we need less than 5 chairs”, but “we need less chairs” is outrageous to me, (for less than however many chairs it takes for them to become dequantized) [I did it again there, did you notice?]
Or maybe it’s to do with the minutes being a quantization of something continuous, whereas usually we deal with the transition the other way.
“couches vs. furniture” couches are discrete, furniture is discrete things as a collective.
“time vs minutes” time is continuous, minutes are a quantization of it. That is a difference compared to couches/ furniture. How do we talk about other quantizations of continuous?
Distance: how far is it? Less than 5 miles. Maybe it’s an acknowledgement of the fact that we talk about miles but inherently understand that distance isn’t countable.
Oops that used “than” again. Uhhh… “the battery in my electric car is degraded so I get 10 less miles per charge”. Hmm I’m not sure if that sounds right…
Or maybe it’s to do with the minutes being a quantization of something continuous, whereas usually we deal with the transition the other way.
I think this is correct.
Suppose she has a 4-gallon bucket, 3/4 filled. She has “less than 4 gallons.”
Contrast with a milk crate, which normally holds 4 jugs of milk, but it, too is only 3/4 filled. Same liquid volume of milk but now I would say that she has “fewer than 4 gallons”, because the milk now comes in discrete units.
It might have to do with grouping. Use less for one lump, use fewer for individual count.
Minutes may be countable but time itself isn’t, I’d say. Generally applies to units: You can certainly count litres but it’s still “less than five litres”, at least when talking about a volume say left in a tank as opposed to things that come in individual 1l containers. The space between that (e.g. 500ml or 1.5l containers) is fuzzy.
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I’ll try to lessen the few times it happens.
This made me think I’d really love there was a “fewen”.
No link, no AUR and hard to google, thanks.
edit: the joke fell flat, because with how modern replacements often are named, fewer could easily have been a modern less.
People thinking the English language is static and has to follow rules.
This Is English, my friend. The top dog of non-proscriptive languages where meanings change over time and reflect current usage.
Want to force everyone to follow the rules?
Start speaking French.
It is also a tool to allow common understanding between a diverse group of people. I’m not saying that less/fewer is an important rule. However ‘anything goes’ is going to have an impact on people’s understanding of bothe you and your message
I’m not saying anything goes either but if people around you use less and fewer interchangeably, there is no communication breakdown at all.
Do you know the correct times to use practice vs practise?
Noun vs verb? That’s the case with licence vs license, at least.
They’re both license in American English.
Edit: Same for practice.
I have used less several times when I should have used more…
Same. It’s like a tic, I’m compelled to mutter “fewer” in my mind, or else I can’t keep paying attention
Using less what?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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Bash says that the
fewercommand can’t be found…lessismore, though!
