You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
43 points

Recently I’ve started to think that these and other similar battles are lost.

permalink
report
parent
reply
66 points

It just feels so petty. Not a single person reading “less cops” was confused by its meaning. I get fighting against misuse of your/you’re, its/it’s, etc. because they can make things harder to read. Fewer and less, though, have the exact same underlying meaning (a reduction).

permalink
report
parent
reply
38 points

Your write. Choose you’re battle wisely

permalink
report
parent
reply
27 points

I’m something of a grammar Nazi, but just like I support letting “whom” die, “less” and “fewer” might as well just be interchangeable. There’s no loss of language utility in doing so, unlike “literally”'s tragic demise.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

Ah don’t let whom die. It’s a really good lesson in subject vs object.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

Literally has been used for emphasis, hyperbole, and metaphor since at least the late 18th century.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

I thought it meant cops should lose weight so there’s less of them overall.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Can we at least stop allowing people to use ‘of’ instead of ‘have’?

It doesn’t make any sense and I need to read the sentence twice to understand what they’re saying.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

This one isn’t even real. “Fewer” can only refer to countable things, but “less” can refer to both countable and uncountable things, and has been used that way for hundreds of years. It has never been wrong to say “less.”

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points
*

They aren’t “lost”, because they were never yours to be “fighting” in the first place…

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

I’m a grammar loving curmudgeon. Even I check myself more often than not after I realized the kind of classist tones that come through when arguing against lexicon.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Me trying to get people to say they “are doing well” not “doing good” when asked “how are you doing?”

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Tracy Jordan says it best in 30 Rock -“No, Superman does good. You’re doing well.”

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

“I’m doing goodly.”

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Eh, I’ll take it

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

What if you caught me in the middle of doing good works?

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Language prescriptivism is a useless endeavour, let the language evolve as it wants, I personally don’t mind the use of less in this situation

permalink
report
parent
reply