h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been torn all my life between believing the prof (Freudian slips notwithstanding) and trying to set up the goal posts for foreign students.
It is the World Service that annoys me most on both my wincemakers. If the announcer has a foreign sounding name, I let it go, but a more obvious Brit gets shouted at. That sounds dreadfully old colonial.

If 'less' used to mean 'fewer' is giving people paroxysms, they are in the unhappy position of being right but on a losing wicket. 'Less people' should mean 'smaller people', but it sure is not used that way.

It can be understood to refer to an unspoken 'number'. The number of people can perfectly well be less.

The rule is so simple even I grasped it as a child.
If the noun is plural (cars, roses, books) use 'fewer'.
If it is collective (traffic, flora, literature) use 'less'.
~jwf~

Yes, but people don't speak by following rules.

Et tu Gnomon?



~jwf~

Yes they do.But perhaps/probably your rules differ from mine. We couldn't make ourselves understood if we weren't following some rules.

I think I'm with your prof, Wandring Star, that one cannot apply rules to native speakers of English, merely make observations. I've given up on the apostrophe. I use it as I was taught, and I observe it in all its wilder manifestations (my favourite so far is Madra's Currry, with Cafe' coming a close second). I am also ceding less / fewer: I know what I woz tort, but I accept that it's becoming archaic.

Talking of which:

Have any of you good peeps seen:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/6413166/Historical-Thesaurus-is-a-masterpiece-worth-waiting-40-years-for.html

That reminds me of a lad who came into a bookstore I was 'assistant managing' just off the campus of the University of Toronto in the early 1970s. It was the start of a new term and we were busy selling cartloads of the usual 'stuff' to young freshmen. Young fellow came in, caught my attention with a polite 'Excuse me..." then looked quizzically at his own hand-written note and asked if we had a book called 'The Saurus'. I had no idea what he was talking about.

I wish to applaud the proper use of Historical in the title. One day it may even become Historic.

I too have given up on others' use of the apostrophe and most of their other common modern errors but there is something about the way less/fewer is abused that still causes me much grief. I mean it's a 50/50 thing; it can be only one of two choices, like a coin toss. And yet, either way, it seems people always get it wrong every time. It's more than mere chance; there has to be a conspiracy,
a diabolical conspiracy.


~jwf~

"The rule is so simple even I grasped it as a child.
If the noun is plural (cars, roses, books) use 'fewer'.
If it is collective (traffic, flora, literature) use 'less'.
~jwf~"

Makes me wonder why they pay you *less* than 500 dollars per hour.

... why they pay you [an amount] less than $500 dollars ... surely? The dollars form a single wage or salary.

But not 'an amount *fewer* than $500 dollars'.

There are other exceptions to jwf's 'simple' rule.

But it's the amount that's less, not the dollars.

"But it's the amount that's less, not the dollars."

Then you agree that it's *less* not *fewer*

You asked why the apparent exception, I gave an explanation.

No, I didn't ask. I was merely pointing out that there are exceptions.

(It took me fewer(?) than five minutes to write that.)

And again there's an implicit collective.

My idiolect doesn't use either. I say "under 20 pounds" etc but I wouldn't mark "less than" or "fewer than" wrong. The majority of my students would leave out "than", though.

Sales advertised with 'Up to 50% off' grate on my nerves, I must admit.

You mean "50% off" a pair of socks would be ... a sock?

~jwf~ (aka ~boo~): <>

The whole point is, I don't see them!!!