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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People using “fewer” instead of “less” would be far more infuriating. 'cause you know they know better and are trying to get a rise out of you :)
I couldn’t care fewer
I feel like that could happen in the same way that “you and I” became a common overcorrection.
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.
So what you’re saying is we need to use ‘less’ fewer?
Less is more unless fewer less is no more no less.
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I also need to think it through every time I use it, because in my native language there is only 1 word for both. (Hungarian)
You know, this is actually a hot take and I could get behind iT.
You could at least practice what you preacH.
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You all are going to give me Homestuck flashbacks.
I THOUGHT HE MEANT EVERY LAST LETTER…AS IN, EVERY ONE.
I had literally never heard anyone complain about this until the Game of Thrones scene with Stannis Baratheon. Maybe grammar nerds cared before that but I don’t think most normal people cared.
I’ve never heard of robert baker, but the less/fewer “rule” makes sense and just “sounds” more correct intuitively. Maybe just bias, having been tainted by this “rule”
Isn’t every rule just a preference of someone influential enough to make it into a rule?
No.
There’s two types of grammar rules. There’s the real grammar rules, which you intuitively learn as a kid and don’t have to be explicitly taught.
For example, any native English speaker can tell you that there’s something off about “the iron great purple old big ball” and that it should really be “the great big old purple iron ball”, even though many aren’t even aware that English has an adjective precedence rule.
Then there’s the fake rules like “ain’t ain’t a real word”, ‘don’t split infinitives’ or “no double negatives”. Those ones are trumped up preferences, often with a classist or racist origin.
It certainly sounds like you have a strong preference how to split preferences into two groups. ;)
The trouble with double negatives in I think Germanic languages in general is that they’re possibly ambiguous, relying on either tone and context or complex grammar to disambiguate whether you mean to negate a negative or mean to pile them up. Also negating negatives should be avoided if you can say things straight-up, there has to be plenty of reason to choose “Don’t not go there” over “Do go there”.
But that’s all style. It has also been said that you should describe how things are, not how they aren’t, and then Douglas Adams comes along and describes a space ship as “hanging in the air in the way that bricks don’t” which is pure brilliance (because it says, in negative space, something else about what that ship is: Eerie to the onlookers). Rules are there so you stop and think before you break them. If you want to write like Douglas Adams just make sure that you always wait until the traffic light turns yellow.
…“Don’t not go there” over “Do go there”…
So many tour guides for cities say things like “do not skip going to” or similar. It’s just a linguistic choice.
One important thing to realize is that different dialects of English have slightly different grammars.
One place where different dialects differ is around negation. Some dialects, like Appalachian English or West Texas English, exhibit ‘negative concord’, where parts of a sentence must agree in negation. For example, “Nobody ain’t doin’ nothing’ wrong”.
One of the most important thing to understanding a sentence is to figure out the dialect of its speaker. You’ll also notice that with sentences with ambiguous terminology like “he ate biscuits” - were they cookies, or something that looked like a scone? Rules are always contextual, based on the variety of the language being spoken.
“Nobody ain’t doin’ nothing’ wrong”.
I’ve always heard it more as “ain’t nobody doin’ nothing wrong”
How would Appalachian English say “Don’t not go there”? Even languages that only use negative concord have constructions to do double negatives, in Russian that’s done like “This is not unprovable” vs. “This is provable”, with “un-” (“без- / бес-”) being a very productive modifier. Sometimes the double negation becomes so common that it becomes part of the word, say небезопасный, “nonundangerous”.
I would expect, in practice, something like “Don’t stay away from there” but as we’re talking about a dialect continuum it doesn’t sound terribly unlikely for people to simply switch grammar (not necessarily phonetics or lexicon) to a dialect in which there’s no negative concord. And that, mostly, is what I mean by “ambiguous”.
@TheEntity some are, like the Prepositions rule, which was invented in the 19th century by some idiots who wished English was more like Latin.
Some are just people making observations about what everyone habitually already does, like Adjectival Order (e.g big brown dog not brown big dog).
Native speakers never have to be taught that rule because it just “feels right” since it’s how our societies talk.
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Mans needa yeet the whack ass non-Gucci words bruh
I couldn’t give fewer of a shit
I’ve corrected people a few times on this, but then I looked it up, and from what I understand, since language is defined by usage, saying “less” when technically it should be “fewer” is still generally correct. It still sounds alright to me, though oddly the reverse (using “fewer” when it should be “less”) sounds fewer (aka less) correct to me.
I’m a linguist and this is the answer. The correct usage is however people use it, not how a book editor, dictionary, or your third grade teacher think it should be used.
Example: “there’s” for both plural and singular rather than “there are” versus “there’s/there is”.
however people use it,
The way this is phrased, it sounds like you can’t be wrong. So I would just clarifying that if both the speaker and audience agree on the intent of the speaker, it’s correct.
There is the concept of an ideolect and you can very easily argue that something is correct as long as some native speaker thinks so…
joor rite spelin is stoopit an sos punktution. Pandas be damned.
The correct usage is however people use it
If people use “literally” figuratively, does that mean that they’re evolving the language? Or are they just idiots?
The language is evolving. “Literally” now means “literally” and also "very much so.
I have worked as a book editor, and so my instinct is often to be corrective/prescriptive. The linguist side of me usually wins out, though.
Literally is now even officially a contranym. Additionally in the process of making the decision to make it a contranym, they pointed to a number of examples of famous English authors using it as in the way these “idiots” use it.
Language evolves.
What is the line for language evolution ?
If I start calling dogs “cats” tomorrow, am I wrong? Or have I just taken the first steps towards making my mark on the English language?
If I start calling dogs “cats” tomorrow, am I wrong?
If your audience knows what you mean? No. If your audience has no idea what you mean? Yes.
Or have I just taken the first steps towards making my mark on the English language?
If it becomes a norm? Yes.
But what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? We were talking about literally, and how it is literally (the way you mean it) a contranym now. Using it to only mean figuratively (the way you want it to be used), especially when it had been used that way for a long time and even has a history of using is no longer “idiotic” it’s just a common usage of the term. It mildly irks me too, however, I can’t remember the last time I was actually confused by the intent of the speaker.
I’ll try to lessen the few times it happens.
This made me think I’d really love there was a “fewen”.
I couldn’t care fewer.
*you’re
Bastard stole my line
Sorry, I’ll do that fewer.
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.
bash: fewer: command not found
I’m setting up an alias right now.
Make sure the OP provides you with a binary first
It’s fine, OP - English is my native language and it irks me some, too, because It was a subject in school that I did really well in and tutored other students.
I’ve come to accept the fact that most folks will always say ‘less’ regardless of the context, I’m guilty of it at times, and at the end of the day it’s not a big deal. But I’m sorry you’re getting the reaction that you are.
My husband and I were actually discussing this a few days ago when I corrected him, again, but at this point it’s more of a running joke between us and he laughs (he is the only person who I ‘correct’ because it is a joke and he finds it funny; I’m not being an asshole when I do it and he knows that).
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.
You should make less worries about this.
