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[–] 42 points 2 years ago (6 children)

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

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  • [–] 64 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    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).

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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."

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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

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