this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
472 points (98.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26734 readers
1987 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don't want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That's ludicrous!

That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use "less" when they should use "fewer"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Petty hill

If you keep correcting very minor grammatical mistakes when I am speaking, such as “you mean fewer, not less”, I will just stop talking to you entirely

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago

Technically, I wait until you're done speaking to strike

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Turns out language is pretty damn flexible. Even if I made an obvious mistake, you meant what I knew.

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

It's simple though. If you can count it, it's fewer. If not, it's less.

Fewer people. Less noise.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That isn't a grammatic rule. Some guy in the recent past was like "I think it sounds better that way." It was his personal preference.

That's all.

They've always been used interchangeably, for as long as English has been a written language.

People who love to "correct" this are just showing ass to anyone who knows any better haha.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is a way in which you can discredit any attempt at proposing correct or logical language use. Yes, language changes. Your assertions are still debatable. English is ambiguous enough as is. It's not 'showing ads' to propose some form of consistent or logical usage of words. I'm happy to count that as a petty hill I'm willing to die on.

And since we're being petty, it's either 'grammatical rule', or 'Grammar rule'.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

This is a way in which you can discredit any attempt at proposing correct or logical language use

It absolutely is not. You're just talking out of your ass.

The same one that you are, in fact, showing when you demand that the personal preference of some random stranger is the way that everyone has to talk from now on. Ludicrous.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

You need some salsa for that chip on your shoulder, or is there another reason why you're getting so personal?

Don't answer. I don't actually care.