Random Thread - Anything Goes
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@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
Or in other words "Nobody actually speaks this way, I think they should" and since that time most people still say "less" just as they did then.
Actually, most people you'd want to talk to speak this way.
I've yet to see any proof there's a connection between education and whether or not someone uses less vs fewer "correctly" without overt hypercorrection. In fact there are many really advanced grammarians who point out it's totally arbitrary, because it's an issue of prescriptive grammar vs descriptive grammar. I actually went to a debate between two different Oxford professors (can't remember the college(s) or their names other than one was a woman and the other an old man) where they each argued both sides of fewer vs less, but that wasn't the debate issue, it was about prescriptive vs descriptive grammar.
To my surprise it was the older man who was in favour of descriptive grammar, but then again the woman also claimed that English spelling impacts the lexicon and without a complex spelling system English would have less words and less meaning, a statement I was surprised to hear because it's so stupid. I don't think this has an impact either way on the argument, I'm just still so baffled at how utterly idiotic someone can be and still be an Oxford professor.
All language rules, in all languages, are made up by someone and then become accepted convention.
No they are not. Essentially all rules, except literary rules, are created by the evolution of language and by the speakers themselves. If we ignore writing, aside from "ain't", there are very few aspects of spoken grammar which ever need to be taught to anyone who is a native speaker. Children learn the rules with totally incomplete information. English speaking nations like to think children would never be able to speak properly without an education in grammar, but this creates a huge logic problem for language in general. The best way to learn advanced grammar is to read books.
But in English, correctly using less vs fewer is common and is one of the more obvious dividers between those that know how to speak and those that do not.
The vast majority of major languages have language academies which control rules for spelling, grammar, and usage. English has never had this so rules are made up by random people, often with little understanding of history. As I demonstrated, Robert Baker himself said he just thought it was better and sounded more correct, and if 248 years later we still need to hypercorrect people on the usage it shows that there's no innate confusion with mixing them up. Not only that, the rule is based upon his own misunderstanding of both "less" and "few" and how he thought people should speak.
If I say "There were 10 less than yesterday" and we're talking about weight then it makes sense, if we're talking about countable items, it still makes sense. Most people actually speak this way. Very few people say "10 items or fewer" because it sounds hypercorrected and silly.
That doesn't mean fewer has no use, it certainly does, the question is whether or not less can carry the weight of both, and they can, because in all Germanic languages except English the word "less" exists in various forms, but "fewer" does not. And English functioned quite well without Robert Baker making up the rule in 1770.
I have seen stats on usage taken amongst college educated individuals or professors (I don't recall), in the "fewer vs less" argument, only about 50% of them even knew of the distinction, and only about 20% actually used it. I don't have that information anymore and was trying to see if I could find it online and I can't so it doesn't prove anything and it's based on my word alone. I wish I had it because it had a lot of other weird stats too.
And it is not arbitrary.
Actually it totally is, there are few rules which are as arbitrary as this one. It's a rule that is trying to base itself on class, just as you demonstrated, the implication one is uneducated by saying "10 items are less". There are few rules like this in spoken language, the biggest certainly is "ain't", which even when I was in University, a professor actually argued with me that "ain't ain't in the dictionary" and, no, she was not an English professor, but it is a common myth because it's considered such wrong use.
I myself don't typically say "ain't", except sarcastically or joking way, mostly because it doesn't fit right and I didn't use it when learning English. Having said that, "ain't" actually did evolve within English and was brought to America by Protestants, primarily to the South East, hence its use there.
The struggle against it is related to class, but it's an issue that originates back in Jolly Ol' England, where language was a function of class, and in America that was not the case until primarily the mid-1800s when newspapers began using bad spelling and bad grammar as a means to communicate someone was stupid, uneducated, or poor primarily to demean politicians. It's a very British view of language indeed.
If someone literally makes up a rule based on his personal opinion and then finally by the end of the 19th century some people start taking it up as a real rule rather than ignoring it, it is arbitrary. If less can be stated as "less" or "fewer" and it still makes equal sense, then the distinction is arbitrary.
Here's my biggest and best trump card I wish I would have thought of when writing essays about language at university, because while it's not proof of anything, it's so goofy but sort of an interesting thought about language:
The mere fact there's absolutely no jokes, good jokes or terrible sitcom jokes, based on someone confusing the meaning of something because "less" was used rather than "fewer" shows it's not something built into the function of the language but tacked on.
Fewer people means a small number in head count.
Less people means a small volume, like in weight or displacement.
Less people than yesterday, I weigh less than I did before. They're both perfectly fine statements and they're what most people would use.
They aren't interchangeable unless you don't want the ability to communicate clear meaning.
Who does that though? As someone who has learned English as a second language I can't say I've ever been confused by someone using the wrong one nor has the meaning been misunderstood. Context is more important than word meaning when it comes to language, in other words nobody would understand children or foreigner language learners at all until they were great at the language.
And the thing is, it's a convention I also even use, but without thinking about it, I don't hypercorrect to the point where I am saying "10 items or fewer" or "at fewest 10 people like dirt flavoured chicken wings." I certainly fall into the descriptive grammar camp where usage in spoken language has an impact on the importance of language. There are cases now where "fewer" is in use even amongst those who were not forced to learn how to speak properly.
That does not mean that more information is made available if I say "10 items or fewer" rather than "10 items or less" and within language aside from hypercorrection, only when there's an issue that even context clues cannot solve are rules, arbitrary or evolutionary, are adopted. There's no chance in hell that "less" won't also always mean "fewer", primarily because it's a word like "set" or "run" that is heavy with meaning and context, unless there's contact with another language or English creates a language academy and sets a rule. If a rule is created that can be backed up by linguists based on logic and use and there isn't a huge gulf between general use and hypercorrection then I'll stop bitching about it.
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In different situations, the same noun can be countable or uncountable. A seemingly countable noun can take or less if it can be thought of as a mass or as a single unit.
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@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
The vast majority of major languages have language academies which control rules for spelling, grammar, and usage.
Sort of. Except languages don't have owners. So anyone can claim to be an authority and make their own changes. Now, for example, France does this and uses the law, rather than fact, to declare what words in French mean. But other countries that speak French don't follow those rules and are no more or less French than the ones in France.
America had this with the Webster dictionary. It was telling a set of made up rules, rather than the Oxford dictionary defining the language as used. That's partially why American usage of English has not drifted to the extent that British or Canadian has. But it's not an authority, it was just heavily viewed as such by the same people who promoted "anything printed by a large company as proof."
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What is interesting is that American English does have a de facto ruling academic body, and it is that body that defined the usage of less and fewer.
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@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
Less people than yesterday, I weigh less than I did before. They're both perfectly fine statements and they're what most people would use.
Yes, but the general rule is that most people in any situation are wrong. The mean is never a good indicator. The median isn't either. In nearly any situation, the median driver is pretty bad. The median person borders on illiterate. The median IT pro, even within accepted pros, can't even begin to do the job that they are hired to do and just fakes it.
That the median speaker uses basic words incorrectly doesn't make it good usage or proper language. The median student will get the countries on a map wrong, but that doesn't mean that we should accept that Argentina borders the US, we just accept that they got it wrong.
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@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
Who does that though? As someone who has learned English as a second language I can't say I've ever been confused by someone using the wrong one nor has the meaning been misunderstood. Context is more important than word meaning when it comes to language, in other words nobody would understand children or foreigner language learners at all until they were great at the language.
Texas is a great example. Using English properly, and using "you" often confuses locals here. Context doesn't help them. People are actually often confused if you use you when they expect y'all. Even though y'all has no need in real English, in the modified Spanish influenced English of Texas, people often think you must be singular. Which, in turn, means that books, newspaper, news, movies, television... simply doesn't make sense to them.
Context is important, but isn't enough to overcome basic misunderstandings in the language.
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@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
Who does that though? As someone who has learned English as a second language I can't say I've ever been confused by someone using the wrong one nor has the meaning been misunderstood. Context is more important than word meaning when it comes to language, in other words nobody would understand children or foreigner language learners at all until they were great at the language.
Texas is a great example. Using English properly, and using "you" often confuses locals here. Context doesn't help them. People are actually often confused if you use you when they expect y'all. Even though y'all has no need in real English, in the modified Spanish influenced English of Texas, people often think you must be singular. Which, in turn, means that books, newspaper, news, movies, television... simply doesn't make sense to them.
Context is important, but isn't enough to overcome basic misunderstandings in the language.
There are separate words for you and you plural in other languages. Swedish for example.
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@Obsolesce said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
Who does that though? As someone who has learned English as a second language I can't say I've ever been confused by someone using the wrong one nor has the meaning been misunderstood. Context is more important than word meaning when it comes to language, in other words nobody would understand children or foreigner language learners at all until they were great at the language.
Texas is a great example. Using English properly, and using "you" often confuses locals here. Context doesn't help them. People are actually often confused if you use you when they expect y'all. Even though y'all has no need in real English, in the modified Spanish influenced English of Texas, people often think you must be singular. Which, in turn, means that books, newspaper, news, movies, television... simply doesn't make sense to them.
Context is important, but isn't enough to overcome basic misunderstandings in the language.
There are separate words for you and you plural in other languages. Swedish for example.
I know, most all languages. But not English. It's Spanglish in Texas that creates the use of it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:
The vast majority of major languages have language academies which control rules for spelling, grammar, and usage.
Sort of. Except languages don't have owners. So anyone can claim to be an authority and make their own changes. Now, for example, France does this and uses the law, rather than fact, to declare what words in French mean. But other countries that speak French don't follow those rules and are no more or less French than the ones in France.
America had this with the Webster dictionary. It was telling a set of made up rules, rather than the Oxford dictionary defining the language as used. That's partially why American usage of English has not drifted to the extent that British or Canadian has. But it's not an authority, it was just heavily viewed as such by the same people who promoted "anything printed by a large company as proof."
Anyone can claim authority with anything, but that doesn't make their claims equally valid at all. Language academies are backed by state power, hence when states collapse like in Roumania, rules that were set can be reversed even if it's not beneficial to do so, or the Russian Revolution, French Revolution (inherited academy from the monarchy), or in Germany it went through many states but was always backed by state power.
American spelling reforms brought by Webster were not just because, they were not just because he just made up rules and people happened to follow them, in this case these massive changes made were later backed by the state under Teddy Roosevelt, and in fact more changes were made but many were undone (again by state power), some like "thru" still exist in niche places. Until Roosevelt came along there was side by side usage of things like color vs colour, the pronunciation of "ski" as "she", and so on. Ironically it was the upper classes who stuck to the old ways and the lower classes drifted towards Webster style spelling because of how cheap his dictionaries were. Another danger of not having a language academy is allowing market forces to dictate language.
English is unique in that the authority though, typically just grammar aspects, comes from house styles and claims made by authors, but that doesn't make them all equal, nor does it mean they are all valid or should be considered. Robert Baker's fewer vs less is an example of someone without understanding of language history, without understanding of current meaning and rules, who established a suggestion (not even a rule) based on his own misunderstanding of the very generalisation he was making. To say it's more valid is to invoke authority that Robert Baker's suggestion comes from some place of any authority, and it's clear it did not.
English in America and Canada have not really drifted except on the coastal areas or areas with a lot of contact with the British or French, which is why traditionally in Boston, New York, Quebec you get huge sound changes. These changes do not exist really elsewhere aside from the /au/ and /oU/ sounds in Canada which are slightly different, but that same-difference exists in parts of some northern American states.
Changes in Britain itself were due to mixing of regional accents due to sailing and the industrial revolution, in addition to the rise of educated accents to purposely create class distinction, such as "Received Pronunciation" which is dying out anyway. These were not typical, natural language drifts that often happen.
In fact it is established academies which cope with language drift, not dictionaries, because if it were up to just dictionaries we'd be in the literal situation we are now where spelling is messed up and all grammar rules aside from innate ones are based upon claims of people who just pull things out of their ass and some, but not all, prescriptive grammarians blindly believe it has authority even though it goes against 1,600 years of language use where literally nobody at all used "fewer" in such a manner and then tried to enforce it arbitrarily later saying it makes more sense even when people still didn't use it that way without hypercorrection.
It comes from no where, it has no use (in the case of less being used for fewer), and it's based on nothing of real substance. Even rules from actual language academies that fail to make since or gain use are abandoned for the most part, they are not stuck to as though they have some sort of benefit just because we want them to, especially after 248 years of spoken language largely ignoring it. English has a history of this though: making up its own history, creating ridiculous rules, and enforcing things arbitrarily when they never had use before. That's why state backed language academies are important.
What is interesting is that American English does have a de facto ruling academic body, and it is that body that defined the usage of less and fewer.
What body is this? There are only dictionaries, house styles from newspapers and magazines, and grammar books children use. If we follow these "de facto" bodies then no split infinitive should be a rule too, except that "omfg so important" rule which was hammered into children's heads in America finally has largely been dropped because like fewer vs less it's based upon an ignorant claim by an ignorant person who claimed authority to regulate grammar. It has more to do with the creator wanting to be right rather than basing it on something correct.
And once you have shown me this de facto body please show me where they establish fewer vs less rules and also explain why people who claim to follow it, don't totally follow it, only where it's most convenient to. That's mostly a rhetorical request because such data is not likely easily available if available at all.... because there is no language academy that tracks such things.
Yes, but the general rule is that most people in any situation are wrong.
Then you're building a constructed language and dialect. I don't think anything is wrong with this in and of itself but that distinction has to be made. In fact I think there is some valid ideas with that which I will discuss in a follow up post.
That the median speaker uses basic words incorrectly doesn't make it good usage or proper language.
Defined by whom? Anyone and we just pick what we like best? That's what seems to be the approach to the grammarians writing English grammar books anyway.
Using English properly, and using "you" often confuses locals here.
I find it hard to believe people are confused by "you", unless it's you plural, unless that's what you meant and probably is.
Context is important, but isn't enough to overcome basic misunderstandings in the language.
And yet show me a single example anywhere where someone has been confused or mislead by using "less" rather than "fewer." I think my sitcom example stands, however unscientific and silly it may be.
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My master thesis was on the concept of an English language academy, and I argued that America should have its own and not give a damn what Britain said about it, largely because of arguments like "whose accent?" are stupid and irrelevant, even many Indians want to speak with American accents now rather than British ones. It was more elegantly put, I just think that argument is sort of a cop out to any discussion and in the English speaking world who matters more, Britain and her countless god awful accents or America and her several god awful accents?
This isn't a new concept because originally there was an American language academy called American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres which described itself as having the purpose of establishing a unified grammar, spelling, typeset standard system for the entire country. They were biggest until the late 1820s. Thomas Jefferson was involved and years earlier Benjamin Franklin not only promoted the idea but promoted his own ideas to reform spelling to create a unique American spelling system, to be called American, not English.
I think one of the biggest mistakes made was not adopting this, because it would saved millions in education because far less time would have been used to learn spelling and more to learn essentially anything else remotely more useful. Most people who don't speak a language aside from English don't realise most languages could never have spelling bees because most things are spelled regularly, even if not perfectly. I think spelling bees are hilariously overrated and really only demonstrate that you can do what my computer can do far better. I also went into other things, unfortunately I don't have a digital form nor a scanner, but it's a boring read for probably most people.
I'm still in favour of the idea and I think that there would likely be a ruling for fewer vs less in some place in between, because Robert Baker's original suggestion is too broad and far too potentially ambiguous, because his understanding of his own generalisations were wrong. "Fewer" as a word has come into general use, but with varying meaning like "less" has, and it would be interesting to see how they could be defined and along which lines.
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I'm not a fan of language academies, but I am a fan of an official language for a country. Meaning like the US should have a formal standard that education is to follow. Rather than allowing every teacher to teach my personal opinion.
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