I’m also a non-native speaker and I’ve also been taught to speak a certain way (“you and I are going” but “he saw you and me”; don’t split infinitives; don’t end sentences with prepositions, etc.), but then I read Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct and - even more relevant here - The Sense of Style. We’ve been taught to use language a certain way, but our teachers were following the prescriptivist school of thought. You say these rules were written by native folk, but it’s often (if not usually) the native folk that say less when they “should” be saying fewer.
I know you said it’s only mildly infuriating to you, but if proper use of language is something dear to your heart (as it is to mine) - I really recommend the above books as I think this is something not worth to get even mildly infuriated about. The border between less and fewer is fuzzier than you think and - in the words of Pinker - once you really master the distinction - that’s one fewer things for you to worry about.
haha! amazing write up and informative view on language and it’s evolution
-bash: fewer: command not found$ alias fewer=less $ which fewer fewer: aliased to less
Sorry, I’ll do that fewer.
I refuse to acknowledge anyone’s struggle with common words like that except lose and loose.
Unlike less and fewer which are basically interchangeable unless you’re being pedantic lose and loose are two completely different words entirely
I wish humans created fewer pollution.
Change pollution to pollutants and it works.
That’s exactly the point. There’s nothing pedantic about acknowledging the difference. “Fewer” is for a countable number of things like “pollutants”, and “less” is for uncountable things like “pollution”. It’s not hard.
I counter your refusal with my refusal of your refusal.
common usage is not the enemy
Confusion is the enemy of communication. Clarity of language is critical to being understood. Correctly using “fewer” and “less” could theoretically provide context clues about what type of thing you’re counting, but you will be understood irregardless of which word you choose to use.
For all intents and purposes this comment triggered me
The topic peaked my interest.
irregardless
You did that on purpose didn’t you.
The intrusive thoughts won. Sorry.
No link, no AUR and hard to google, thanks.
edit: the joke fell flat, because i just came from a post about basht, which uses ueberzug or chafa (replacements for good ol Fbi-IMproved and Terminal Image Viewer) and looked before at baca (shell bookmark manager) and broot (replacement for tree)
So, yeah.
People using “fewer” instead of “less” would be far more infuriating. 'cause you know they know better and are trying to get a rise out of you :)
I couldn’t care fewer
It’s fine, OP - English is my native language and it irks me some, too, because It was a subject in school that I did really well in and tutored other students.
I’ve come to accept the fact that most folks will always say ‘less’ regardless of the context, I’m guilty of it at times, and at the end of the day it’s not a big deal. But I’m sorry you’re getting the reaction that you are.
My husband and I were actually discussing this a few days ago when I corrected him, again, but at this point it’s more of a running joke between us and he laughs (he is the only person who I ‘correct’ because it is a joke and he finds it funny; I’m not being an asshole when I do it and he knows that).
Honestly you have to be able to switch caring about that stuff off, when you want to, otherwise knowing any of these rules is more a curse than a blessing.
This is Mildly Infuriating, not I’m dying if this doesn’t stop.
Equally, this is mildly infuriating not mildly irritating. The subreddit is for things you’re getting, albeit mildly, infuriated by.
People using ‘infuriating’ when they should be using ‘irritating’
Ok so, as a native English speaker, let me inform you, that whatever you think is a rule in English, isn’t. It’s a guideline. It’s a hard language because we lack structure. The native teachers are teaching you the basic guidelines, not actual conversational English, which varies heavily on location, and social group.
English definitely has rules.
It’s why you can’t say something like “girl the will boy the paid” to mean “the boy is paying the girl” and have people understand you.
Less vs fewer, though, isn’t really a rule. It’s more an 18th century style guideline some people took too seriously.
Holy shit, you broke so many comma usage rules in your first sentence alone!
Ok[] so, as a native english speaker, let me inform you[,] that whatever you think is a rule in english[,] isn’t.
i count 3.
out of 4 commas placed, it’s not great, but i was expecting closer to a dozen from your comment.
Less people should be using “less” instead of “fewer”. 😜
No no, you got that wrong.
Less people should be using “fewer” instead of “fewer”. 😜
Less people should be using “😜” instead of “fewer”. 😜
[malix@derp ~]$ fewer .bashrc bash: fewer: command not found:(
The right answer is to use bat
My pet peeve is people using
lesswhen they should be usingmoreNah, I like my VIM keys
$alias fewer = ‘less’
What would
" $ touch fewer
$ fewer .bashrc " Do?basically nothing/same “command not found”.
“fewer” doesn’t have execute rights, nor does the next command use the fewer in current directory. But, taking all that into account and “doing it right…ish”:
$ touch fewer $ chmod +x fewer $ ./fewer .bashrc #it outputs nothing, it's an empty script
Totally agree. I need to bite my tongue when I hear it.
Also see: ‘Very unique’ And ‘jealous’ when they mean ‘envious’.
Very unique was originally an insult veiled as an unintentionally incorrect usage of the expression. The hidden meaning could be explained as “I think it’s retarded but I don’t want to say that in public.”
Source: chick movies.
As for Jealous vs Envious. Are you sure it isn’t merely your perception that’s mistaking the use?
I know I tend to confuse the two because one wants something that resembles what you have and the other wants what you have directly.
So the perception of those involved can mix up the two concepts in this regard.@Lath the way to remember is the phrase “jealous husband”.
Obviously he doesn’t just want to have a wife (he’s already a husband), he specifically wants his own wife to be talking with him not some other guy.
