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(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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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.
Literal grammar police.
ACAB.
The thin red line
? That's usually a reference to British soldiers especially during the musket era. What's it mean here?
it's a joke that a lot of people copyedit or mark students' work in red pen, a pun on the thin X line, a(n arguably risible) belief that those in a particular uniform are the only thing keeping society intact.
The squiggly line that spell check draws ~~Uber~~ under misspelled words
It draws under words usually, not über them
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:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less
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.
Yes.
I don't think that quite meets the threshold yet, since most people who do that would still agree that it's not correct. However, it's close, and I wouldn't be against recording it as an alternative spelling.
It's a bit tangential, but English spelling is awful anyway, it bears hardly any relationship to the pronunciation, and I think it's great if it evolves to be a bit less unintuitive.
I suppose you probably do accept the existence of American spellings, even if you aren't from there? So the only difference between us is time, and how many people use a variant. Everyone is a descriptivist, some people just also think they should force their opinions on others, which is wrong. ;)
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?
Hey man, do you want to be grammatically correct, or do you want to speak clearly to people who want to be a cop? Sometimes you have to make a choice.
Haha! Fair enough.
Less cops --> Fewer racism
Less cops
Fewer racism
Very better society
Wow!
no downvotes on blahaj
You can count numbers but they use < in maths. QED.
Oh, you mean the "fewer than" symbol? (Some people do call it that.)
You can count numbers? How many are there?
At least 7
Well when you have 81,000 gallons of cops you need less cops for sure. I think the sign is right.
I can't tell if you made this example randomly, or were actually present for the last discussion of this exact same thing. Either way, it's pretty funny. How many gallons in your average cop? They look pretty voluminous in general.