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[-] 018118055@sopuli.xyz 43 points 2 years ago

Recently I've started to think that these and other similar battles are lost.

[-] nova@lemmy.world 66 points 2 years ago

It just feels so petty. Not a single person reading "less cops" was confused by its meaning. I get fighting against misuse of your/you're, its/it's, etc. because they can make things harder to read. Fewer and less, though, have the exact same underlying meaning (a reduction).

[-] lugal@sopuli.xyz 38 points 2 years ago

Your write. Choose you're battle wisely

[-] samus12345@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago

I'm something of a grammar Nazi, but just like I support letting "whom" die, "less" and "fewer" might as well just be interchangeable. There's no loss of language utility in doing so, unlike "literally"'s tragic demise.

[-] pythonoob@programming.dev 11 points 2 years ago

Ah don't let whom die. It's a really good lesson in subject vs object.

[-] Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Literally has been used for emphasis, hyperbole, and metaphor since at least the late 18th century.

[-] samus12345@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

I'm aware, but it was done so sparingly, as opposed to being used to mean its opposite far more than its original meaning nowadays.

[-] Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

That is how language works. It starts off small, then it catches on over time, and after a long time has passed, it either gets filtered out, or it becomes commonly used. The case for literally being used, for reasons other than its original one, started a couple hundred years ago. Today it is super commonly used that way, as it didn't get abandoned. You are mad at the nature of the beast.

[-] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

I thought it meant cops should lose weight so there's less of them overall.

[-] Rinox@feddit.it 2 points 2 years ago

Can we at least stop allowing people to use 'of' instead of 'have'?

It doesn't make any sense and I need to read the sentence twice to understand what they're saying.

[-] ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 years ago

This one isn't even real. "Fewer" can only refer to countable things, but "less" can refer to both countable and uncountable things, and has been used that way for hundreds of years. It has never been wrong to say "less."

[-] DessertStorms@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They aren't "lost", because they were never yours to be "fighting" in the first place..

[-] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago

I’m a grammar loving curmudgeon. Even I check myself more often than not after I realized the kind of classist tones that come through when arguing against lexicon.

[-] Dagnet@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Me trying to get people to say they "are doing well" not "doing good" when asked "how are you doing?"

[-] ettyblatant@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

Tracy Jordan says it best in 30 Rock -"No, Superman does good. You're doing well."

[-] samus12345@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago
[-] Dagnet@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Eh, I'll take it

[-] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago

What if you caught me in the middle of doing good works?

[-] kspatlas@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

Language prescriptivism is a useless endeavour, let the language evolve as it wants, I personally don't mind the use of less in this situation

this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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