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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY (Stephen Fry explaining his position on this particular form of pedantry
by eric_h 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY (Stephen Fry explaining his position on this particular form of pedantry, amongst other things).
It rubs me the wrong way as well, since my parents (well, my mother; my father grew up bilingual, so precision in english was certainly not as strong a part of his upbringing) were quite insistent that I used the correct adjectives and conjugations in english as I was growing up.
However, the less vs. fewer debate is over, common usage replacing 'fewer' with 'less' vastly outnumbers proper usage of fewer v. less; time to drop the pedantry as it is of nebulous benefit to begin with (in this particular case).
"You can't pour a glass of <some obviously enumerable item>" really doesn't matter anymore, and I feel the difference in the adjective never really conferred any meaning at all (unless, perhaps, the item you were speaking of was not obviously enumerable, but I can't think of any reasonable examples of that).
- pklausler 11y agoIf X has a plural Xs, say "fewer Xs", else "less X". That simple rule will get you the right usage most of the time.
- eric_h 11y agoYes, that's what I meant by "you can't pour a glass of <some obviously enumerable item>" - same principle, pithier expression of it, said in response to an incorrect usage of "less", e.g.: "He has less dogs than I do", "you mean 'fewer' since you can't pour a glass of dogs"