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

Mr 306 (Post 72): I was hinting that your example was not a very well-chosen one Plus, you left out the bit about context.

I'm not advocating mindless grammatical sloppiness: I like correctly placed apostrophes just like everybody else*. What I say is that in the end, with Andrew's geese, they don't matter that much: because first, the context should tell you what is meant, and second you cannot really trust the person who wrote that to have written it correctly. So even if the apostrophe is your *only* way of understanding what was meant, context notwithstanding, you should still make sure that what is written is really what was meant.

Or maybe the one who reads is unsure of the difference, so the message you are trying to get across won't be correctly interpreted. If you really want to communicate something important, it is probably best not to rely too much on minor typographical signs to carry too much important information.

A (late) disclaimer: I actually do like proper grammar and non-confusing use of its/it's, loose/lose, etc. Typography is a great source of comedy**, but there is a time and place for everything.


* that's a by the way.

** "Please help your uncle Jack off his horse"

"Less/Fewer. There is no useful semantic reason to distinguish between countable nouns and nouns of quantity."

It's certainly becoming increasingly common for native speakers to use 'less' with countables (doubtless more than foreign learners of English do).

Perhaps we should just remove the word 'fewer' from our lexicon - as you would have 'whilst' removed (in the interests of more freedom of expression ).

Sorry I forgot the , Ed.



I just came by to fix the subject line for you.

RE:

>>Perhaps we should just remove the word 'fewer' from our lexicon - as you would have 'whilst' removed (in the interests of more freedom of expression ).

No no no no no.

I have no views one way or the other about the lexicon. As it happens, I make the less/fewer distinction - I simply don't see that it's somehow wrong not to. It certainly doesn't irk me. Conversely, I say 'while' and sometimes some eejit will tell me it should be 'whilst' without having a clue about why they even think so. Well - they can write 'whilst' if they want to - but they wouldn't normally *say* it.

Free 'Freedom of Expression' thing is a red herring. Obviously we should only say what works for its audience. But - hey - it's something the audience and the speaker that agree amongst themselves.

I thought we'd decided on the above.

Free 'Freedom of Expression' thing -> The 'Freedom of Expression' thing

Sloppy proofreading. What a poltroon!

I assume anhaga's suggesting I'm a Nazi who's against grammar.

I'm not. Just someone who knows what grammar actually *means*.

"As it happens, I make the less/fewer distinction - I simply don't see that it's somehow wrong not to."

It sure looks like you do see what's wrong with it, or why make the distinction?

Taste? Habit? Peer group conformity? 'Cause I was told it's important even though it's not? (actually - I wasn't. I am reasonably sure I was never taught the distinction.)

Any number of reasons. But not logic, far's I can see.

I like less/fewer as it does distinguish between number and amount. Admittedly, it's difficult constructing a situation where the meaning would be unclear if you used the wrong term.

I regret that we don't have the option for the opposite effect. 'More' suffices in both cases.

'Fewer' is a coelacanth. Coelacanths are nice. But they're not the only fish in the sea.

Is someone arguing for logic in the English language?

Most of the Spaniards I've helped get through interviews, exams, etc, find the illogicality of things like phrasal verbs (and, of course, our crazy spelling system) far more troubling than simple distinctions between words like 'less/fewer', 'like/as', etc.

Well can I ask you what you *are* asking for? If enough people don't care - and seemingly they don't - why must anyone tut?

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1079#comic

I'm loving the idea that the primary purpose of English grammar is to assist Human Resources in their selection processes.

Edward the Bonobo

I'd say it aids Engineers and other people who do important jobs...Human resources people probably don't know their who from whom otherwise they would be in a 'proper' important value-adding job.

It certainly wouldn't bother me if some one wasn't using who/whom correctly all the time(as I don't) or split infinitives (as that really is a hold-over from Latin) however there's a level of grammar that people should be able to work at.

I'm not at a (Mark) Kermodian level of grammar Nazism who picks up any mis-ordered group of words that actually sounds better when they are in the 'wrong order' which is why split infinitives sound OK.

Well, there are quite a few Spaniards in this world who'd like to see a spelling system (more like theirs) where the pronunciation of the spoken word is much more closely indicated by its written form.

What I'm wondering (see post 88) is why someone (you) who takes care to follow all the 'rules' should appear to be getting into "something akin to a moral lather" because others want to preserve the fine distinctions between words - and to write just like you do.

By the way, the word 'whilst' whilst banned from the Edited Guide is far from dead - it is used daily on this site by a variety of Researchers.

Where do people stand on 'firstly'? I was told at school that we should never use it, as 'first' is an adequate adverb.

@Alftster:

There's a certain intuitive sense in the idea that the ability to send in a good CV equates to good performance. I wonder if there's any evidence? I wonder weather it's the same for all important jobs? I really am prepared to admit that it's useful. However, from what I know of selection and testing I can't help but think that there are less crude tests.

But even if it is useful - are we *really* spending all this time and effort obsessing over grammar simply so that we can secure jobs in which written output may or may not be important? If English is important, I sincerely hope we can come up with some better reasons.

Firstly, as a non-native speaker of the English language, I like the word "firstly" as it corresponds so nicely to my German mother tongue. "Erstens" differs quite greatly from "erser/erstes/erste", which are the adjectives that translate as "first" in their feminine, neuter and masculine forms, in reverse order.

Secondly, the confused and confusing arrangement of words in the above paragraph indicate that I am prone to being a grammar Nazi, myself, and a rather conservative one at that, seeing that I prefer an English structure on the basis of its similarity to a German equivalent.

Bahhhh.

First / Firstly - I personally (now I am speaking as my truer self) prefer "first" as the adjective. Even more so if it antecedes the words "of all".

Y.