Fewer or less...

Originally Posted by northwind

Having said that, when I rule the world saying "More unique" will be punishable by death.

It's like the hairdresser around the corner from where I work that advertises:

"Specialising in all styles"

I couldn't give a monkeys uncle what the signs say in Tesco & as far as i'm concerned they could remove them completely because the to55ers that are always in front of me obviously never or can't read them because they have at least 15 items in their bloody baskets anyway.

Maybe they should make everyone who shops with a basket remove their shoes & tell them that when they run out of toes to count on to go to the checkout.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Foey

I couldn't give a monkeys uncle what the signs say in Tesco & as far as i'm concerned they could remove them completely because the to55ers that are always in front of me obviously never or can't read them because they have at least 15 items in their bloody baskets anyway.

Maybe they should make everyone who shops with a basket remove their shoes & tell them that when they run out of toes to count on to go to the checkout.

We are dealing with the literacy thing now.

Numeracy will come later

Besides most of those kinds of people CAN count to 15 on both hands - and not neccesarily because they cant count.....

[ixlr8]

Errm, to go back to the beginning, in Oz, we had a supermarket advertising "cheaper" prices. The retort of course was, "I don't want to buy a price, no matter how cheap". They changed it to lower prices for a while but brought back "cheaper" as the "lower" sounded poncy to the average punter.

Originally Posted by northwind

But seriously... The english language is needlessly overcomplicated, and also contains a huge number of corruptions which have become acceptable. English, like all living languages, changes over time.

Shan't, for instance, is an accepted corruption simply because it's been around for so long, but it's essentially just very old txt spk. In fact any apostrophe'd two word contraction is a corruption in much the same way- it's a case of running words together to make them faster to say and write, sound familiar 2 ne1? When these contractions were first entering common usage they were considered a sign of poor education and lack of manners.

There comes a point once nobody understands a rule, and nobody obeys the rule, that it's no longer an effective rule. Personally, I think fewer and less is one of these situations, language is just a tool used to convey meaning and in this case it does the job perfectly. If we attempt to freeze the language in place, it stops being a tool and becomes a cage, and instead of thinking about the meaning we worry about the presentation of the meaning.

Unfortunately it's one of those matter of degrees situations. Personally I always think that if I don't notice an error, it's not important, and if I do notice an error then it should be corrected. So does everyone else, and that's the problem. Just like anyone faster than you on the road is a maniac and anyone slower is a snail.

Dis is wot I sed in post 22, but u sed it better, innit.

Originally Posted by northwind

Having said that, when I rule the world saying "More unique" will be punishable by death.

Me wishes I sed dis bit 2, cuz me lykes it.

[northwind]

I haz 1337 wurdz