"Less" and "Fewer," Does It Matter?

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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I never want to become so involved in how people say or write something that I am not making an effort to understand what they are trying to say.
 
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mawnansmiff

Lifer
Oct 14, 2015
7,385
7,295
Sunny Cornwall, UK.
"Still, for anyone who has been around long enough to cultivate a particular usage, the "wrong" diction can really grate. "

I'm forever dismayed that Americans have lost the ability to pronounce the letter 'T' in many words as thus....

"In twenny twenny the democradic pardy did their doody and voded for Biden in the baddle of the pardies".

Having heard American speech from the earliest available recordings, this seems to have been a relatively recent thing.

Regards,

Jay.?
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I had a shipmate in the Navy from Rome, Georgia, who did a great imitation of Yankee-speak. He just hit all the consonants hard and talked fast. He was good. He'd have made it in New York City right off the bus. I grew up in Chicago, but the family's Massachusetts roots stuck in my speech. A kid with a great Chicago accent, like Richard J. Daley, asked me if I was from Europe. Richard J. Daley was totally Irish, but had an odd chewing way of speaking, and I finally decided he'd grown up with a lot of Polish kids who had that accent. There was no lyrical Irish roll to Daley's speech whatever. Such is life.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I think I lost the family Massachusetts enunciation when I kicked around the country in school and military, and came out with an accent that Chicagoans hear as Southern, but no Southerner would recognize as native South. But when I talk to my cousins, two of whom are adopted, they all still have that New England thing, and it makes me smile, and repress a laugh, just from the familiarity of it. Sounds like my parents.
 

JMcQ

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 9, 2019
850
4,264
46
Atlantic Beach, FL
America is too large and unique to make and keep any hard grammer rules. Language and dialect change over time. Even great authors and poets have bent and down right broken strict accepted rules of written grammer.

To nit pick someone's grammer or pronunciation, is just saying, "how I was taught is right and how you were taught is wrong".
 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,568
27,074
Carmel Valley, CA
America is too large and unique to make and keep any hard grammer rules. Language and dialect change over time. Even great authors and poets have bent and down right broken strict accepted rules of written grammer.
Couldn't disagree more; grammar is relatively stable over time. Now, local idioms, pronunciations, and specific meanings of some words are not subject to uniformity across the nation, across some states, even some cities.
To nit pick someone's grammer or pronunciation, is just saying, "how I was taught is right and how you were taught is wrong".

I see very little nit-picking of grammar here, and of course, no pronunciation nagging.
 

bnichols23

Lifer
Mar 13, 2018
4,131
9,554
SC Piedmont
Couldn't disagree more; grammar is relatively stable over time. Now, local idioms, pronunciations, and specific meanings of some words are not subject to uniformity across the nation, across some states, even some cities.


I see very little nit-picking of grammar here, and of course, no pronunciation nagging.
John, "of course" being an appositive phrase, it needs a comma before, as well as after. I put some extras in the other sentence so feel free to use one of those of course!
 

edger

Lifer
Dec 9, 2016
2,988
22,299
74
Mayer AZ
"Still, for anyone who has been around long enough to cultivate a particular usage, the "wrong" diction can really grate. "

I'm forever dismayed that Americans have lost the ability to pronounce the letter 'T' in many words as thus....

"In twenny twenny the democradic pardy did their doody and voded for Biden in the baddle of the pardies".

Having heard American speech from the earliest available recordings, this seems to have been a relatively recent thing.

Regards,

Jay.?
And then add the “glottal stop” that replaces “T”s. Yowzer!
 
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