Are standards slipping? Less/fewer, then/than…. Being/been?!

😆

To prove my point (not about being miserable, etc.), there’s a thread title on this forum:

“Renault’s – have they got any better?”

Kerley, using less like that is perfectly acceptable. Lots of grammar “rules” are just conventions or aren’t rules at all, just plain made up. Then/than I think is mostly sloppy spellchecker.

Epic – bravo. A good joke to bring a smile to my face early in the morning!

played with, and as long as

Not a go at you Captain, but commas with and is one thing I don’t like. I know it’s acceptable, but they are both pauses and my brain just suffers a bit of pain when I see it. It just seems like a waste of one or the other.

Pointless observation over 😉

A matriculating pedant – that’ll get the red top readers frothing at the mouth 😀

Then/that type mistakes aren’t going be picked up by a spell checker, a grammar checker should though.

If language does not evolve it becomes a mill stone like French a crazily over complicated tool stuck in the 17th century.

Kerley, using less like that is perfectly acceptable. Lots of grammar “rules” are just conventions or aren’t rules at all, just plain made up.

Yes, but that’s not one of them. Less and fewer have distinctly different meanings.

Ban apostrophe’s 😉

That should lead to much fewer mistake’s 😉 by fik people 😉

None of the aforementioned misdemeanours are as bad as brought/bought. “I brought a new car”. Where did you bring it from? That has just come to light in the last few years so all I can assume is that an increasing number of completely illiterate morons are being allowed access to the internet.

“I brought a new car”. Where did you bring it from?

You mean ‘from where did you bring it?’

I brought it from the dealer to my house, obviously*. Careful with the pedantry there 🙂

* or should that be brung? Or brunged?

misuse of loose / lose should be instant banhammer.

“Celtic were on the loosing side to Barcelona last night”

AAARRGHH!

It’s all well and good being a pedant but you’d better be bloody perfect cos you’ve just stuck a target on your back, especially if you take yourself seriously. I mean, I like a pedantic pun as much as the next person but if you actually get wound up and take a serious shot at someone for their grammatical errors you’re gonna end up in a whole world of pain…

Exactly! I can’t believe that

are you going to suggest that a grocers’ apostrophe is now acceptable

was allowed to slip past without a bit of ridicule…

The one that really annoys me is the use of “joking”. It’s “you are joking”, NOT “you are joking me”.

Balls. Doesn’t seem to work. Anyway, points about class/background signifiers apply.

I’m not bothered when people mix up words that are kind of the same, like less/fewer they mean the same really and we can’t expect all people to be English experts other wise we wouldn’t have experts on other topics!

But using the completely wrong word just because you happen to say it that way due to your accent is not on IMO. I.e. then/than in the OP.

Apparently, figurative is now an official definition of literal; due to a large proportion of English speakers being literally braindead.

Is this level of worng what the flux capacitor was designed to handle?

But using the completely wrong word just because you happen to say it that way due to your accent is not on IMO. I.e. then/than in the OP.

Do you have any pacific examples?

Yes, but that’s not one of them.

See? made up rules.

There are prescriptive uses and common uses less cars (prescriptively) is technically incorrect, however it’s common use and makes sense. Same with: “he can run 100 metres in fewer than 10 seconds” prescriptively correct, but sounds crap!

Do you have any pacific examples?

I’ll sea if I can find any….

My daughter has started saying ‘I done it’ intsead of ‘I did it’. She’s picked this up of her schoolmates and the teachers aren’t correcting them because they don’t use English in the classroom. I have to correct it, because it sounds so awful.

I wouldn’t be too bothered about less/fewer as they are becoming interchangeable.

“Less serious injuries”
“Fewer serious injuries”

Kerley, using less like that is perfectly acceptable. Lots of grammar “rules” are just conventions or aren’t rules at all, just plain made up. Then/than I think is mostly sloppy spellchecker

Except when the rule states less for uncountable nouns and fewer for countable nouns.

“She’s picked this up of her schoolmates “

Err … 🙂

“Less serious injuries”
“Fewer serious injuries”

Well on the flip side, you’d have:

“More serious injuries” or, err “More serious injuries”. Context is everything and those two could have easily been written differently for clarification.

My brain just can’t get into the habit of using “fewer” correctly, it feels like such an awkwardly redundant word. People talk about the new generation letting standards slip, I’m 35.

It’s the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you’re shit.

“She’s picked this up of her schoolmates “

Err …

You’re quite right. Should have been ‘from her schoolmates’.

Well “Less serious injuries” would indicate a number of injuries that aren’t as serious and “fewer serious injuries” would indicate a smaller number of serious injuries. If you were describing an accident to incoming paramedics then there is a distinct difference!

My daughter is doing A level English language and has applied to do it to degree level. She’s just been watching this TED talk on what makes a word real and one thing that stuck out to me was the bit about the meaning of the word peruse…
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/peruse
Which is correct? To thoroughly study written material? Or to casually glance over the same written material?
Language changes. I think we’ll all just have to learn to live with that fact, whether we like it or not…

Well “Less serious injuries” would indicate a number of injuries that aren’t as serious and “fewer serious injuries” would indicate a smaller number of serious injuries. If you were describing an accident to incoming paramedics then there is a distinct difference!

But that is because of the word serious as part of the sentence so needs to be correct in that case. However, no difference between less injuries or fewer injuries.

But that is because of the word serious as part of the sentence so needs to be correct in that case. However, no difference between less injuries or fewer injuries.

Except there is a difference, and you’re wrong.
The biggest problem is that people don’t like being corrected or learning properly.

Except there is a difference, and you’re wrong.
The biggest problem is that people don’t like being corrected or learning properly.

There is no difference and you are wrong. Who exactly decides what is right? Me or you?

Not directly related but a fun read Same word, different meaning

kerley – Member

Well “Less serious injuries” would indicate a number of injuries that aren’t as serious and “fewer serious injuries” would indicate a smaller number of serious injuries. If you were describing an accident to incoming paramedics then there is a distinct difference!

Context will take care of it (in this case, why would you be saying “there’s fewer serious injuries” to an incoming paramedic? Fewer than what?). IMO Less/fewer will no longer be seen as distinct within the next 50 years, and nobody will care except curmudgeons

Context will take care of it (in this case, why would you be saying “there’s fewer serious injuries” to an incoming paramedic? Fewer than what?). IMO Less/fewer will no longer be seen as distinct within the next 50 years, and nobody will care except curmudgeons

Yes, in that context it is important. Just as in fewer cannot be used in place of less in other sentences “the impact of this change is fewer serious than the last change”

However, in the context of less injuries and fewer injuries it really doesn’t matter.

Except when the rule states less for uncountable nouns and fewer for countable nouns.

There’s fewer flour in the bag

There’s less flour in the bag.

When you try to set hard and fast rules like this, you’re pretty much bound to come up against instances where it just doesn’t work, hence my example of “fewer seconds” (prescriptively correct, not in common use)

Less cars on the road, or fewer cars on the road is just such an example, one will work just as well as the other.

less/fewer can probably be attributed to language evolution.

been/being, should of/should have, etc. and the apostrophe basically being used as a prefix to the letter S at the end of a word is just lack of education, people being thick, and self diagnosing dyslexia as an excuse.

Well on the flip side, you’d have:

“More serious injuries” or, err “More serious injuries”. Context is everything and those two could have easily been written differently for clarification.

My brain just can’t get into the habit of using “fewer” correctly, it feels like such an awkwardly redundant word. People talk about the new generation letting standards slip, I’m 35.

You were arguing that “less” and “fewer” are interchangeable. The two statements I wrote above shows that’s not true.