| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] | Difference between 'less' and 'fewer' Thread poster: Jackie Bowman
|
|---|
| is punctuation grammar | Oct 16, 2006 |
mediamatrix wrote:
how about the one saying that sentences must begin with a capital letter?
do you see what i did there
I appreciate the effort, but I'm not convinced it's a rule of English grammar as such. For one thing, although we do speak differently from how we write, it's not a rule of grammar that would be easily applied to speech. And I think rules of grammar should, or at least could, apply across the board in that respect. After all, do Spaniards indicate that they're about to ask a question by giving some visual sign of the upside-down ? that appears in Spanish? It's just a written convention, IMO.
I do agree, however, that if push came to shove, we could probably get by without it
I've just noticed I've broken wrong-headed Victorian prescriptive grammarian rule number 3, by starting a sentence with a conjunction. I shall (or will, I'm not sure which, or that) now take a break for some self-flagellation. I've been looking for an excuse all day...
| | | | Giles Watson 
Italy
Local time: 18:26
Italian to English
In memoriam | Description, prescription and communication | Oct 17, 2006 |
Jackie Bowman wrote:
What are Descriptive Grammarians? Are they like Klingons? Have they reached Mars yet? Are they already AMONG us??
Why is prescriptiveness so un-English? Love it, myself ...
I had noticed
Prescription is un-English because the English language is (mis)treated by its native speakers primarily as a vehicle of communication and not as a culture marker or token of belonging to a community. There is no Academy of the English Language.
English also develops much quicker than most other tongues because of the sheer number of speech acts the human race generates in the language, and the facility with which they circulate through global communications. This means any but the most basic prescriptive rules tend to have a shorter shelf life than similar rules in other languages.
The finest English language grammarians have traditionally been descriptive because it is the only sensible approach unless you have the authority to impose your prescriptions (for example, in a classroom) or want to get involved in politics ("a language is a dialect with an army").
Of course, not everything described is necessarily useful for communication but then to communicate effectively, you have to take into account other, extralinguistic factors as well as grammar, established usage and personal preference (your own and your interlocutor's).
FWIW
Giles
| | | | Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 18:26
Italian to English
In memoriam | Upside-down question marks | Oct 17, 2006 |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
After all, do Spaniards indicate that they're about to ask a question by giving some visual sign of the upside-down ? that appears in Spanish? It's just a written convention, IMO.
Actually, I find Spanish upside-down question marks both elegant and useful.
Spoken language is one thing: questions are frequently accompanied by body language or other signals in all the languages I can think of (Charlie, that "of" is for you).
What written Spanish lacks is a grammatical convention to mark the beginning of questions like the inversion of subject and auxiliary verb in English. Since Spanish authors often go in for very long sentences, you might feel put out if you had to read all the way to the end before you found out whether a phrase was interrogative or declarative.
I think those attractive little squiggles are really very intelligent.
FWIW
Giles
[Edited at 2006-10-17 10:31]
| | | | TonyTK
German to English
+ ...
| From Hier to Eternit | Oct 17, 2006 |
RobinB wrote:
... are language geeks. Nothing to be ashamed of, either. Real translators are bad insurance risks, too. You're driving down the Autobahn at 200 kph and suddenly turn your head to look at a large advertising hoarding, muttering "Hey, there shouldn't be a comma thaaaaaaagh".
The boy done good.
| | |
|
|
|
Giles Watson wrote:
I think those attractive little squiggles are really very intelligent.
FWIW
Giles
OK then, let it not be said that I can't be persuaded to alter my position. I also (mercifully no-one has mentioned them yet!) overlooked the role of commas in grammar. Let's say punctuation counts
| | | | mediamatrix (X)
Local time: 12:26
Spanish to English
+ ...
| ¡Absolutely! | Oct 17, 2006 |
Giles Watson wrote:
What written Spanish lacks is a grammatical convention to mark the beginning of questions like the inversion of subject and auxiliary verb in English.
Indeed. But that doesn't (quite) explain why Spanish also has an inverted ! to delimit exclamations. Here (unless I've missed something) it's simply a substitute for the change of intonation of the spoken word.
An important point is that the ¿ or ¡ goes, as Giles says, at the beginning of the actual question/exclamation - not necessarily at the beginning of the sentence. For example:
By the way ¿are you going shopping this afternoon?
Like many things in life ¡it all depends on the weather!
Giles added:
I think those attractive little squiggles are really very intelligent.
I agree. What's not so intelligent - at least for those with non-Spanish keyboards - is that it's hassle to type them.
If anyone want's to play around with ¡ and ¿, to see what an impact they would have on the clarity of your writing in English (or some other language, come to that) you'll find them here: Alt+168 --> ¿ and Alt+173 --> ¡ .
Charlie wrote:
Let's say punctuation counts ...
Thank you Sir ¡a scholar and a gentleman!
MediaMatrix
[Edited at 2006-10-17 12:22]
| | | | trab
Local time: 12:26
Spanish to English
| Some "Rules" are exceptionally silly | Oct 17, 2006 |
Take for example the rule against splitting infinitives. Or the one against ending a sentence with a preposition. Both these rules are based on the faulty premise that Latin is the "correct" language and English, to be correct, must conform to Latin grammar.
But this is absurd.
The fact that Latin infinitives are one word as opposed to English's two, or that Latin has no phasal verbs, whereas English is loaded is no reason to bar them from English.
... See more Take for example the rule against splitting infinitives. Or the one against ending a sentence with a preposition. Both these rules are based on the faulty premise that Latin is the "correct" language and English, to be correct, must conform to Latin grammar.
But this is absurd.
The fact that Latin infinitives are one word as opposed to English's two, or that Latin has no phasal verbs, whereas English is loaded is no reason to bar them from English.
Of course, I am in full agreement re: affect/effect; discrete/discreet. They're different words with different meanings.
As for "less/fewer", as an educated native speaker of US English, I am less and less convinced that this is a crucial distinction.
My two cents. ▲ Collapse
| | | | maryrose
Local time: 01:56
English
+ ...
| you and I/me | Oct 29, 2006 |
Charlie Bavington wrote: RobinB wrote:
But essentially "fewer than one in ten" does indeed mean a fraction between zero and one. Would it have been clearer if I'd written "fewer than 10 in 100"?
Robin Ah, we agree on what fewer than one in 10 is intended to mean (as I suspected we did ). I guess my point is that "fewer", by virtue of its "countability", implies, to me, whole numbers. Therefore, fewer than 10 in 100 of to me means 1,2,3,...9, whereas less than 10 in 100 could mean 4.3245, 2.002948, etc. Therefore, as I said, fewer than 1 (in 10, or otherwise) can only logically mean 0, because fewer => countable units, and the only unit (integer) of a value inferior to 1 is zero, whereas less than 1 (in 10, or otherwise) can mean anything between 0 [or even minus infinity, mathematically] and 0.99999 recurring. This is, indeed, to me not far removed from my previous example of "fewer than 5 lorry-loads of bricks" versus "less than 5 lorry-loads of bricks", which, as I said, represent different things. Note the above is peppered with "to me"; I'm not sure of my ground, and it's true to say that I have much less of a problem with the very similar construction of, say, fewer than 3 in 10 translators (but that is perhaps because it allows for 1 or 2 in 10 translators so it 'makes sense'). I think it all boils down to: how do you interpret "fewer than 1"? Can it only mean zero (as I think) because of the countability => integers only aspect, or does it mean the same as "less than 1" in the mathematical sense?
Sorry, should have been a response to Timothy's post
Cheers
maryrose
[Edited at 2006-10-29 02:37]
| | |
|
|
|
maryrose
Local time: 01:56
English
+ ...
| you and I/me | Oct 29, 2006 |
Timothy Barton wrote:
I once had a perfectly acceptable "you and I" corrected. I gave a lengthy explanation back saying why "you and me" was correct, since I've had this discussion with many people who are convinced that "you and me" is ALWAYS wrong. The problem is, I remember at school the teacher telling us that we shouldn't say "Peter and me went shopping", but he didn't tell us that we shouldn't say "Peter came shopping with Jane and I", and I think a lot of other people weren't taught this either. [/quote]
You are so right, Timothy! There is definitely a view that "you and me" is ALWAYS an uneducated usage, and "you and I" is somehow more refined:
"They invited John and I". I constantly hear variations on this theme. Makes my hair stand on end, but hey, we are SO in the minority (sorry!).
Cheers
maryrose
| | | | maryrose
Local time: 01:56
English
+ ...
| upside down question marks | Oct 29, 2006 |
Giles Watson wrote: Charlie Bavington wrote:
After all, do Spaniards indicate that they're about to ask a question by giving some visual sign of the upside-down ? that appears in Spanish? It's just a written convention, IMO.
Actually, I find Spanish upside-down question marks both elegant and useful. Spoken language is one thing: questions are frequently accompanied by body language or other signals in all the languages I can think of (Charlie, that "of" is for you). What written Spanish lacks is a grammatical convention to mark the beginning of questions like the inversion of subject and auxiliary verb in English. Since Spanish authors often go in for very long sentences, you might feel put out if you had to read all the way to the end before you found out whether a phrase was interrogative or declarative. I think those attractive little squiggles are really very intelligent. FWIW Giles [Edited at 2006-10-17 10:31]
Don't you wish Italian had them, Giles? Don't you just hate it when you get to the end of one of those ten-line sentences and it turns out to be a question (Yes, I know I should be reading it through first, but hey, you know.), and you have to go back and turn it into an English question form?
Off the topic, sorry, but I have often thought this!
Cheers
Maryrose
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 09:26
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| More and fewer, less | Nov 2, 2006 |
My guess is that the lack of symmetry between 'more' (count and non-count) and 'fewer' (count), 'less' (non-count) might have something to do with the encroachment of 'less' upon the territory of 'fewer'.
'fewer mistakes' 'less effort'
'more mistakes' 'more effort'
| | | | transparx
United States
Local time: 12:26
English to Italian
+ ...
| a very good guess... | Nov 9, 2006 |
Michele Fauble wrote:
My guess is that the lack of symmetry between 'more' (count and non-count) and 'fewer' (count), 'less' (non-count) might have something to do with the encroachment of 'less' upon the territory of 'fewer'.
'fewer mistakes' 'less effort'
'more mistakes' 'more effort'
...and a great way of putting it.
It would not be a solitary phenomenon in language. Think, for instance, of the strategy speakers employ to handle a similar dichotomy in the tense/aspect system in informal grammar. I'm referring to the use of the simple past with the value of the present perfect. This, in my opinion, is not unlike the use of "less" with the value of "fewer." In this scenario, the simple future would be like "more": a signifier referring to two different objects --more specifically, to two different temporal frames (most simply put, today and tomorrow).
And I'm sure other such examples could be found.
____________________________
to Jackie:
Please accept my apologies for my previous post.
I've had occasion to read some of your other posts, and I must admit I like many of the things you say.
_______________________________
BTW, I always use "fewer" with count nouns!
| | | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Difference between 'less' and 'fewer' | Protemos translation business management system | Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!
The system lets you keep client/vendor database, with contacts and rates, manage projects and assign jobs to vendors, issue invoices, track payments, store and manage project files, generate business reports on turnover profit per client/manager etc.
More info » |
| | Trados Studio 2022 Freelance | The leading translation software used by over 270,000 translators.
Designed with your feedback in mind, Trados Studio 2022 delivers an unrivalled, powerful desktop
and cloud solution, empowering you to work in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
