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!
I couldn’t care fewer.
@cdf12345 if you really want to infuriate people that should be “I could care fewer.”
Bastard stole my line
*you’re
[malix@derp ~]$ fewer .bashrc bash: fewer: command not found:(
$alias fewer = ‘less’
What would
" $ touch fewer
$ fewer .bashrc " Do?basically nothing/same “command not found”.
“fewer” doesn’t have execute rights, nor does the next command use the fewer in current directory. But, taking all that into account and “doing it right…ish”:
$ touch fewer $ chmod +x fewer $ ./fewer .bashrc #it outputs nothing, it's an empty script
My pet peeve is people using
lesswhen they should be usingmoreNah, I like my VIM keys
Heh. How’s the weather in 1968? :-p
The right answer is to use bat
when people write should of instead of should have
Shoulda woulda coulda
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.
Well, my personal options on
literallyare that it is not being used to meanfiguratively, it is being used in a figurative manner for weight and effect. The same way thatyeahandrightare both positive/agreement words, but can be used in a figurative manner to mean the opposite. If someone says “they turned the frogs gay!” And someone responds “riiiiiiiiiight…”,rightstill means “that statement is correct” but it was used with an inflection that implies the opposite. That doesn’t mean the dictionary definition ofrightnow needs to be updated to fall in line with 21st century sarcastic smart ass linguistics.So, I dont actually think the definition of
literallyhas changed, and I disagree with any dictionary that says it has and now needs to include an additional definition of the word that means the opposite.The reason I was asking is because you, like me, seem to care about this more than the average person. So I was curious of your thought on the matter in hopes that I might gain some additional insight on the matter that I didn’t have before.
It mildly irks me too, however, I can’t remember the last time I was actually confused by the intent of the speaker.
That’s the same feeling I would have if someone told me a story where they were “habilitated by fear” instead of “debilitated by fear”. I know what they mean. That doesn’t mean the word they used means the same thing though.
bash: fewer: command not found
I’m setting up an alias right now.
Make sure the OP provides you with a binary first
I’ve tried more instead of less, I will have to try fewer and see how it works, which repo is fewer on?
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You could at least practice what you preacH.
I THOUGHT HE MEANT EVERY LAST LETTER…AS IN, EVERY ONE.
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You all are going to give me Homestuck flashbacks.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
“Nobody ain’t doin’ nothing’ wrong”.
I’ve always heard it more as “ain’t nobody doin’ nothing wrong”
…“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.
It certainly sounds like you have a strong preference how to split preferences into two groups. ;)
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Mans needa yeet the whack ass non-Gucci words bruh
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.
Hmmm - maybe I should be using “fewer” less times than I should be using “less” fewer times…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-bash: fewer: command not found$ alias fewer=less $ which fewer fewer: aliased to less
Sorry, I’ll do that fewer.
I’m also a non-native speaker and I’ve also been taught to speak a certain way (“you and I are going” but “he saw you and me”; don’t split infinitives; don’t end sentences with prepositions, etc.), but then I read Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct and - even more relevant here - The Sense of Style. We’ve been taught to use language a certain way, but our teachers were following the prescriptivist school of thought. You say these rules were written by native folk, but it’s often (if not usually) the native folk that say less when they “should” be saying fewer.
I know you said it’s only mildly infuriating to you, but if proper use of language is something dear to your heart (as it is to mine) - I really recommend the above books as I think this is something not worth to get even mildly infuriated about. The border between less and fewer is fuzzier than you think and - in the words of Pinker - once you really master the distinction - that’s one fewer thing for you to worry about.
Edit: typo
haha! amazing write up and informative view on language and it’s evolution
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.
For all intents and purposes this comment triggered me
The topic peaked my interest.
irregardless
You did that on purpose didn’t you.
The intrusive thoughts won. Sorry.
Same. It’s like a tic, I’m compelled to mutter “fewer” in my mind, or else I can’t keep paying attention
I couldn’t give fewer of a shit
I’m doing good.
Well, you bastard. You’re doing well!!!
Hmm, I’m fewer sure of that.
