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What if it turns out that people who take corners faster make fewer claims?

by Andys 10y ago

dorfsmay 10y ago
Or what about if the people who take corners.faster make LESS claims? PS: not trying to defend aggressive driving, I'm not an agresive driver, just saying it'd be interesting if a lot of our assumptions were thrown out the window with that data.
- drewbug 10y ago
  What's the difference between your comment's "LESS" and its parent's "fewer"?
  - dorfsmay 10y ago
    wow, I was sure it said more...
  - tzs 10y ago
    That depends on what he was trying to do with that comment. I believe that he's trying to make a distinction between the number of claims filed by people who take corners faster and the size of the claims made by such people when they do file a claim. Generally, "fewer" is used when talking about things that come in discrete amounts, and "less" when talking about continuous things. For example, if you were comparing the amount of water in two glasses of water you would say that one has less water than the other, but if you were comparing the number of ice cubes in the two glasses you would say one has fewer ice cubes than the other. However, "less" is often used even for discrete things when there is a unit attach, such as with money. E.g., we might reasonably say either "the waller contained less than $5" or the "the wallet contained less than $10". Before the late 18th century "less" was used with discrete things. As with many things in grammar, some prescriptivist decided that people were doing it wrong and made a new rule, and we got stuck with it. And like other such bogus rules (such as not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions) current usage is tending away from following the rule. The main argument I've seen that we need different words for comparing discrete things and comparing continuous things is that it is less ambiguous when it would not be clear what word the comparison word applies to. For instance suppose there were two studies of possible cancer treatments. Study A produced 2 promising treatments and study B produced 4 promising treatments. All of the treatments from study A look like they will be better than all of the treatments from study B. Using the prescriptivist take on "less" and "fewer" we could say that study A has "fewer promising results" (we are comparing the number of results) but study B has "less promising results" (we are comparing the quality of the results). Anyway, I think that is the distinction he was trying to make.
    - dorfsmay 10y ago
      No, not that deep. I simply mis-read the parent and though it said "more"...
superuser2 10y ago
I strongly suspect that most fast acceleration, fast cruising, fast cornering, etc. is undertaken 1) in cars that are designed to handle it, 2) by drivers who are 100% in the moment focused on enjoying the act of driving. I expect these behaviors to be at least an order of magnitude less dangerous than - having slept less than 8 hours - texting - eating fast food - having a conversation with passengers or on the phone - interacting with small children in any way - driving a car which is not up to the fun you're trying to have with it - driving a car with serious damage And yet of these, only texting is frowned upon. I'm thinking of all the times my mother turned her head away from the road at 60mph to mediate a fight in the backseat and feeling significantly less bad about my cornering habits.

What if it turns out that people who take corners faster make fewer claims?

by Andys 10y ago

What if it turns out that people who take corners faster make fewer claims?

Or what about if the people who take corners.faster make LESS claims? PS: not trying to defend aggressive driving, I'm not an agresive driver, just saying it'd be interesting if a lot of our assumptions were thrown out the window with that data.

drewbug 10y ago
What's the difference between your comment's "LESS" and its parent's "fewer"?
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  wow, I was sure it said more...
- tzs 10y ago
  That depends on what he was trying to do with that comment. I believe that he's trying to make a distinction between the number of claims filed by people who take corners faster and the size of the claims made by such people when they do file a claim. Generally, "fewer" is used when talking about things that come in discrete amounts, and "less" when talking about continuous things. For example, if you were comparing the amount of water in two glasses of water you would say that one has less water than the other, but if you were comparing the number of ice cubes in the two glasses you would say one has fewer ice cubes than the other. However, "less" is often used even for discrete things when there is a unit attach, such as with money. E.g., we might reasonably say either "the waller contained less than $5" or the "the wallet contained less than $10". Before the late 18th century "less" was used with discrete things. As with many things in grammar, some prescriptivist decided that people were doing it wrong and made a new rule, and we got stuck with it. And like other such bogus rules (such as not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions) current usage is tending away from following the rule. The main argument I've seen that we need different words for comparing discrete things and comparing continuous things is that it is less ambiguous when it would not be clear what word the comparison word applies to. For instance suppose there were two studies of possible cancer treatments. Study A produced 2 promising treatments and study B produced 4 promising treatments. All of the treatments from study A look like they will be better than all of the treatments from study B. Using the prescriptivist take on "less" and "fewer" we could say that study A has "fewer promising results" (we are comparing the number of results) but study B has "less promising results" (we are comparing the quality of the results). Anyway, I think that is the distinction he was trying to make.
  - dorfsmay 10y ago
    No, not that deep. I simply mis-read the parent and though it said "more"...

superuser2 10y ago

I strongly suspect that most fast acceleration, fast cruising, fast cornering, etc. is undertaken 1) in cars that are designed to handle it, 2) by drivers who are 100% in the moment focused on enjoying the act of driving. I expect these behaviors to be at least an order of magnitude less dangerous than - having slept less than 8 hours - texting - eating fast food - having a conversation with passengers or on the phone - interacting with small children in any way - driving a car which is not up to the fun you're trying to have with it - driving a car with serious damage And yet of these, only texting is frowned upon. I'm thinking of all the times my mother turned her head away from the road at 60mph to mediate a fight in the backseat and feeling significantly less bad about my cornering habits.