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Rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 month ago (25 children)

I would say it's "fewer" not "less", but every time I do, I get a lecture and downvoted.

Even though this time it's quite clearly a case where "fewer" is the proper choice as "cop" is most definitely a countable noun (yes, I know there are exceptions, this is generally not one.)

Bring on the downvotes.

I agree with the sentiment.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago (3 children)

You wanted a lecture, here you go:

You can use less for countable nouns, any of them. We've been doing it for literally centuries. In fact, it has never been used only for uncountable nouns (unlike fewer, which has generally only been used for countable nouns). Correct language is determined by what native speakers use on purpose, not what a textbook or teacher says.

At least read the Wikipedia and the dictionary if you want to keep a strong opinion about this:

However, modern linguistics has shown that idiomatic past and current usage consists of the word less with both countable nouns and uncountable nouns so that the traditional rule for the use of the word fewer stands, but not the traditional rule for the use of the word less. As Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage explains, "Less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

OK, so I'm a prescriptivist and don't agree. As mentioned in the paragraph before the one you quoted. Should we just let any old thing that slips into common usage to become the norm? Why not spell it "definately"? It's very common and everyone understands it.

I'm all for evolving language, but the fewer words we use, the less elegant it becomes. IMO of course.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Common usage the the norm are literally the same thing.

Prescriptivists act like 'the norm' is some ordained perfection and everything in their own lifetime is an aberration, but that's just temporal exceptionalism. Do you really think you just happened to be born at a time when the people writing style guides pointed at the be all the all of the English language and all advances are just corruption?

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