Cracker: Send in the Clowns
160 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
This one is only $109 but that is still the price of a decent bottle of Scotch ;-)
The country is bloody awash with overpriced Laphroiag. There are better whiskies you could spent $108 on, for serious.
-
3410,
Jumping on the grammar pedant train (Tech Writer, whaddaya gonna do?), I'm pretty sure "less than" is correct in that context. While it's usually "less" for mass nouns and "fewer" for count nouns, when you have a quantity of count nouns that's being treated as a single bulk amount, you use "less"
Except it's not being treated as a single bulk amount. If he'd said " the number of people is less than 6000" then sure, but "less than 6000 people" is counting discrete units so should read "fewer", I think.
-
Josh Addison, in reply to
You may be right, but I'm still not sure. I've seen quite a few instances of people hyper-correcting "less" to "fewer" recently - perhaps I'm over-reacting to their over-reactions...
To add fuel to the flames, a grammatical defence of the hated "10 Items or Less" supermarket signs...
-
You may be right, but I'm still not sure.
He is right. You can tell it's not a single bulk amount because you don't say "6000 people is".
But. I remind myself that I don't really care, and last night I wrote a paragraph about how I don't care about the less/fewer thing...
-
Josh Addison, in reply to
You can tell it's not a single bulk amount because you don't say "6000 people is".
Again, depends on context - you'd say "6000 people are standing in my front yard", but "6000 people is too many to be standing in my front yard", or indeed "6000 people isn't a lot of viewers for a TV show."
To be honest, I don't really care much, either. Yet here we are...
-
It’s an arbitrary and relatively modern distinction anyway, made for aesthetic rather than grammatical reasons in the late eighteenth century.
Appearing in a quote in Language Log:
The OED shows that less has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great – he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin – more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially less has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language. After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that fewer might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker’s lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe less used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated.
It’s paywalled on the OED, but it does indeed say
c. A smaller number of; fewer. This originates from the Old English construction of lǽs adv. (quasi-n.) with a partitive genitive. Freq. found but generally regarded as incorrect.
Of course, generally regarded as incorrect is not the same thing as incorrect, and linguistic prescriptivism is no way to win an argument. I agree with everything else Damian has to say about TVNZ7, for what it’s worth.
-
Sacha, in reply to
I don't really care much, either
+1
Providing you can understand what's being communicated, I have little tolerance for nitpicking.
-
Fooman, in reply to
The country is bloody awash with overpriced Laphroiag. There are better whiskies you could spent $108 on, for serious.
It's not overpriced when the importer starts selling the 10 year for ~$50 bucks per 700 ml bottle every now and then - I'm quite happy to pick up a couple of bottles at that price.
A job which involves travel every now and then is good for the whisky shelf as well.
FM
-
For the record, I don't care that much either, I just needed a pithy third point. :)
I do find people (the editorial in Perigo's first show is a great example - teachers who fail to impart such knowledge are 'child molesters' - good grief) banging on about it a bit much. And it shouldn't be used to counter someone's argument per se, that's as bad as an ad homenim attack, really. But I don't agree (paraphrasing @Sacha, say) that understanding the communication is all that matters. That is a bit of a slippery slope, and I'd hate to lose all those lovely distinctions that make our language beautiful. If we don't value them, they don't get passed on or picked up, and soon they disappear completely. Evolution is great, devolution ain't.
-
3410,
But I don't agree (paraphrasing @Sacha, say) that understanding the communication is all that matters. That is a bit of a slippery slope, and I'd hate to lose all those lovely distinctions that make our language beautiful. If we don't value them, they don't get passed on or picked up, and soon they disappear completely. Evolution is great, devolution ain't.
So, basically, you do care. ;)
-
Just official now: Media7 has won "best digital only TV show on Freeview" and "best TV show on a channel on Freeview" in the 2011 Freeview Awards. Back Benches runner up in both categories.
So we both beat Close Up and Campbell Live ;-)
Chuffed.
-
Sacha, in reply to
But I don't agree (paraphrasing @Sacha, say) that understanding the communication is all that matters.
You'll note I was talking about nitpicking, as over "less" vs "fewer". I really do not care how someone gets the message across so long as it gets across. Still room for beauty and diversity in expression, however.
-
recordari, in reply to
So we both beat Close Up and Campbell Live ;-)
Chuffed.
Congrats. Ratings are not a reflection of quality. More evidence at 9.15pm Thursday.
-
Damian Christie, in reply to
So, basically, you do care. ;)
Yeah, basically. :) But in context. I don't care more than I care about a lot of things.
@Sacha - I'm not trying to be pedantic, but I guess that depends on what 'the message' is. I just made a very similar point to yours on a facebook discussion (Simon Bridges vs Tiki Taane, someone tried to say that the Tiki supporters had poor grammar, and therefore... something). I think we probably agree about the relative importance of the message vs the grammar/spelling - as long as we agree that the latter has some importance...
-
Sacha, in reply to
we agree that the latter has some importance
certainly - or no message would be understandable
-
Sacha, in reply to
Chuffed
rightfully
-
Ken Sparks, in reply to
Media7 has won “best digital only TV show on Freeview” and “best TV show on a channel on Freeview” in the 2011 Freeview Awards. Back Benches runner up in both categories.
Well deserved - congratulations to the teams behind both shows.
More ammo for the Save TVNZ7 campaign... -
Jackie Clark, in reply to
I think we probably agree about the relative importance of the message vs the grammar/spelling – as long as we agree that the latter has some importance…
I used to be very judgey about grammar and spelling. But I have a head teacher who has dreadful spelling, and horrendous syntax. She gets me to proofread her stuff from time to time, but nowadays, I usually say it's fine, even if it isn't. After all, she's a great head teacher, and a fantastic team member, so why would I want to hurt her feelings?
-
Damian Christie, in reply to
After all, she’s a great head teacher, and a fantastic team member, so why would I want to hurt her feelings
Fair enough. As long as you wouldn't take the same approach with a student.
-
Jacqui Dunn, in reply to
I remind myself that I don’t really care, and last night I wrote a paragraph about how I don’t care about the less/fewer thing…
Mmm. Just say "I couldn't care fewer".
-
Jackie Clark, in reply to
Fair enough. As long as you wouldn’t take the same approach with a student.
That's a hard one. With teaching students, we get alot of women for whom English is a secondary language. If their grammar is completely horrendous, I say something. Otherwise, it's the content I'm more interested in.
-
Jacqui Dunn, in reply to
6000 people is too many to be standing in my front yard
Pedant here again. I wouldn't say that. I'd say "6,000 people are too many to be, etc." Like, there are 6,000 people, and that (fact) is that too many...... (trails off, wondering, is this the thread talking about those new things that make you forget where you were?)
-
Media7 has won “best digital only TV show on Freeview” and “best TV show on a channel on Freeview”
Great. At last a vote that counts.
On grammar. I try to avoid being a pedant but when you read hundreds of student essay and assess dozens of presentations every semester, some things do begin to rankle eg its/it’s; there/their..and a recent favourite –a student who was planning to do a survey and intending to ‘coagulate the results’!
-
we get alot [sic] of women for whom English is a secondary language
… and after a few years of marking ESL output, nativelike errors start to look OK?
(I have to confess to being an utter pedant; but I try not to correct everything in my students’ first drafts: partly because I still have to work out what they mean at that stage of the process, and partly because it would be far too much editing for them to do in one step without introducing new errors.
But you do tend to remember the research reports that mention the small sample size, and a need for further study “with larger gropes”.) -
Jackie Clark, in reply to
To be honest, linger, I’m only their Associate Teacher – not their lecturer, so I see their reflections, and feedback, but not essays, assignments and things. I figure I can leave most of it up to their training providers. And I don't mark anything. As I said, I'm the teacher that mentors them in their practicums, so I'm not really supposed to be the one that gives them shit for their writing, anyway. Although, the ability to write well in English is actually one of the things that you need to be able to do to be an early childhood educator. We do alot of reports, writing of policy and procedure, the childrens' assessments etc.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.