Linguists?

[undyingking]

From the BBC news magazine:

"Tesco is changing its checkout signs after coming under criticism from linguists for using "less" rather than "fewer". But it's not just huge, multinational supermarkets that get confused about this grammatical point. The grammatical question of fewer versus less has been raising the hackles of plain English speakers for years."

I see two errors in this excerpt.

• First, it would be more accurate to say that Tesco has come under criticism not from linguists, but from pedants. (Some of whom may also be linguists, or at least think of themselves as such, but that's not what characterizes them in this context.)
• Second, plain English speakers couldn't give half an etiolated toss about fewer vs less, because they care about clarity of communication rather than smug pseudo-intellectual one-upmanship about fanciful and arbitrary grammatical "rules".
  

I've never understood why so many English-speakers seem keen to stifle their language -- the most versatile, flexible, powerful and expressive in the world. I'm pretty sure though that it is a social / intellectual insecurity thing -- if you know a bunch of made-up signifiers by which you can claim that you are "right" and lots of other people are "wrong", you mark yourself out as somehow better than the norm.

(Please note that I'm not saying that there should be no rules in English; that would be ridiculous. What I'm saying is that some of what are claimed as rules -- like less vs fewer, not splitting an infitive, not ending a sentence with a preposition, etc -- are meaningless, hallowed neither by usage tradition nor by innate sense, and frankly pathetic.)

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

not ending a sentence with a preposition

Let me guess: this is the kind of nonsense up with which you will not put?

More seriously, I don't think there's much pretention (which Google Chrome wants me to spell with an 's') involved in all this. It's a question of where one wants to draw the line with respect to adopting errors into acceptable usage.

To say "ten items or less" is clear only for the same reason that "ten items or lighter" or "ten items or smaller" would be equally clear. It is still a type error. Type errors are not generally meaningless at all, so if you want to argue that this one is you'd need to explain why.

[theo]

I came here expressly to make the "up with which" joke only to find myself beaten to the punch. Furthermore, you then make an eloquently, apposite point, which had not occurred to me. I regret that I must now hate you.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It's a question of where one wants to draw the line with respect to adopting errors into acceptable usage

And of what you count as "errors". This is a pretty fertile area for pretension¹ to creep in, whether self-aware or not.

So in this case I don't think it is an error at all. Usage of "less" to cover count quantities as well as continuous ones is sufficently widespread and historical that to claim that it has a canonical meaning that excludes counts is nonsensical.

I don't know enough about type theory to really address that point, except to say that English is clearly pretty weakly typed in places -- so it seems to me that while sometimes type errors are not meaningless, in places where a putative type error doesn't actually have any effect on interpreted meaning of the phrase, it then is indeed meaningless.

---

1 I believe Google Chrome is correct². "Pretention" is AFAIK just a legal term meaning trying to claim sthg that you have no real right to.
2 FSVO "correct" as per larger discussion.

Points granted but

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to see the correction as I don't like the idea that instead of being an example of flexibility, we'd just be losing 'fewer' entirely over time and, the pattern being repeated elsewhere, ending up with a depleted stock for expressing ourselves. OK the language gains words at a vast rate but many of them are transient, technical or just crap.

Re: Points granted but

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm absolutely in favour of supporting endangered distinct meanings, but I don't think this really is a significant distinct meaning. Do you feel sad that "more" has to cover both counts and quantities?

[theo]

De argyment dat clarittee must be our only arbiter seems speeshus to me.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I didn't think I was making that argument? -- although maybe my own clarity is rather lacking...

Pesonally I feel that usage should be our arbiter.

[theo]

The problem with usage as our arbiter is that different users have different degrees of influence. The contentious use of 'less' on a Tesco sign influences a huge number of people to believe that such usage is 'correct'. Our apostrophe challenged grocer on the Cornhill market carries less weight than the same usage printed by Sainsburys, say.

Would that we could differentiate between 'formal book language' and fluid usage.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I don't really see that as a problem, just as an aspect of the behaviour of a competing meme ecology. Shakespeare's First Folio has had a staggeringly disproportionate effect on English orthography and usage, but no-one would complain about that.

If Tesco influences a large number of peple to shift their usage, so be it: other people can always set up a counter-meme if they feel that strongly about it. Which they are doing, as this story evidences: so let them fight it out, and we'll see who's won in a few decades' time.

My own feeling though is that there is no real point or virtue in pressing the superiority of one usage over another: the one that people are happiest to use and to understand will eventually triumph.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

OK, first a concession: the rules about not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions are indeed pretentious. Specifically, they originate from Victorian grammarians who wanted to apply Latin grammar rules to English, on the grounds that Latin is a superior language. They don't always work, they don't always fit, and the fact that I still make a point of trying to stick to them is as much a sort of game I play as because I truly believe that it is wrong to do otherwise.

That said, Less versus Fewer does not come into that category. The fact that "less" is commonly used to mean "fewer" is not because of the laudable vivacity of the English language, it is because so little effort is put into teaching even rudimentary English grammar in British schools, that most people genuinely do not understand that there is a difference. Americans are generally much better educated in English Grammar than most British people are (and I really don't like having to admit that).

Saying "Less items" is just as wrong as saying "How much items have you got there?" or "How many water does that bucket hold?" just because it is commonly misused and sounds more familiar to our ears does not make it correct.

The other thing is, there is a place for formality and there is a place for colloquialism. To my mind, a large company writing signage or documentation does have some kind of duty to check such output for correctness. Sometimes, they may choose to use a non-standard form of either grammar or spelling for effect; to make it seem more trendy and/or American ("Drive Thru" and "Lite" for example"). I don't like that either, but it is different than simple carelessness.

The value and rigidity of linguistic rules is arguable, obviously, as we are demonstrating, but to dismiss people who value the distinctions in meaning that are lost when language is used imprecisely as "smug pseudo-intellectuals" whose ideas are "frankly pathetic" is not only unfair, but is does nothing to back up your case.

Also, I see that lower down, you have used the concept of competing "memes" to support your contention that popular usage makes something correct, or if not correct then more valid than strict-usage arguments put forward by a minority. Personally, I find the idea of memes to be a superficially interesting way of thinking about concepts, but one which is ultimately completely and utterly specious. Sayings and quotations are often subject to drift, so that a misquote is sometimes the most recognisable version of a famous quotation. It will never be the correct quote, but (if you are lucky), the semantic drift that accompanies it might make the new saying more useful or apposite than the original. Conversely, you may lose the point of the original altogether, and end up with a woolly mixed-metaphor that is only still in use because it is a recognisable cliche.

So while I see your point, I don't entirely agree with you. ;-)

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Yes, that's about what I was looking to say, only rather more succinctly put than I had yet managed.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

just because it is commonly misused and sounds more familiar to our ears does not make it correct

As you can deduce, I think quite the opposite. I think it's fundamental to the evolution of language that a sufficient weight of usage defines acceptability. You might have seen my point about "you" for the second person singular pronoun: that was once thought incorrect, but now it would be distinctly eccentric to claim it so. Usage doesn't remain fixed at what it was when the words entered the language, and it's by the process of "misuse" and acceptance that these shifts take place. If the notion of correctness doesn't move with them, then it's a sterile concept.

I also think of memes as a useful concept rather than anything more concrete, but it's in just this kind of thing where they find that usefulness. Many people are by now aware that some say "10 items or less", others "fewer". If over time we observe that one of these versions has come to dominate over the other, then we can characterize that as that meme having won. Whether the winner is more or less acceptable to academic consideration is irrelevant: if people continue to prefer "less", in time "fewer" will sound as quaint as "thou", however many arguments are mounted for its historical correctness.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

The fact that "less" is commonly used to mean "fewer" is not because of the laudable vivacity of the English language, it is because so little effort is put into teaching even rudimentary English grammar in British schools, that most people genuinely do not understand that there is a difference.

Bravo.

Americans are generally much better educated in English Grammar than most British people are (and I really don't like having to admit that).

It's true. But they have *different* rules, of course, in many cases.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

I think I more or less agree with you about "fewer". But what am I to do about the scrolling sign at the kids' school which has encouraged me to have a "successfull" term for over a year now, despite my having a word with the receptionist on at least one occasion. Should I find it completely neutral because it is totally unambiguous, and (unlike theoclarke's example above doesn't even require pause for thought to sort it out?

Does the fact that it makes me steadily more inclined to leap over the barrier, find the bloody computer and change it myself, screaming "You're a fucking school! Do you not have a single fucking dictionary, or one member of staff who gives a damn about spelling!" mark me out as a tragic anorak-wearing pedant?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I suppose that depends on how well-established that spelling now is. My feeling is not very, in which case it's legitimate to describe it as "functionally incorrect" under today's usage pattern. And to feel and act accordingly.

But if it was a genuinely established variant spelling (eg. realise for realize) that you just happen not to prefer, then such a reaction would indeed be inappropriate.

Saying that, consensus about spelling usage seems to be more easily reached than consensus about grammatical usage -- I suspect because variant spelling isn't apparent in speech, only in writing.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Less vs fewer isn't fanciful and arbitrary! It's a question of what the words actually mean! They mean different things! Fewer means fewer items. Less means less stuff. Fundamentally different.

In this case, though, the wording doesn't bother me, because I don't read it as '10 items or fewer items', I read it as '10 items or less shopping'. In my mind, there's an invisible comma - '10 items, or less.'

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

My point is that if people predominantly use a word to mean something, then it's futile to insist that it "actually" means something different. Meanings of all sorts of words shift over time, following usage.

Elsewhere on here I've used the example of the word "you", which used to just mean the second person plural. Gradually it also absorbed the second-person-singular meaning of "thou", in just the same way that "less" is currently absorbing the meaning of "fewer" in this context. In time, saying "10 items or fewer" will sound as quaint as "thou" does now. People back in the C18 complained about this misuse of "you", but wouldst thou prefer to drag modern English back to the defeated usage?

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

You'll be pleased to hear that US municipal codes seem to use "less" instead of "fewer" almost universally, and that I was well and truly stetted when, as a novice proofreader, I tentatively suggested the correction.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I am indeed pleased to hear that! Although even more pleased to see "stetted" used so freely.

[crowleycrow.livejournal.com]

The reason is clarity of thought, and fineness of distinction, not historical usage or the self-regard of pedants or the corruption and decline of the present (real as that is). You don't want to make them equivalent unless they are truly interchangeable, and they aren't: you might find "less cookies" unobjectionable, but you'd surely never say "fewer water."

It may well be that the distinction arose late in historical use precisely to express a difference. Why lose a distinction just on the claim "who cares, we all get it"? On that standard, we can use "uninterested" and "disinterested" to mean the same thing, and lose a word from the language; "continuous" and "continual" may well once have been equivalent, but now they're not -- not to me and many other people who like fine distinctions.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

"Fewer water" sounds odd now because no-one does use it: but if it were somehow to become as commonplace as "less cookies" is, then I would see no reason to object to it.

I don't think that the distinction between "less" and "fewer" is a significant one: it's a distinction only of usage ("one should be used with counts, the other with quantities"), not of meaning. After all, we're all perfectly happy to say "more cookies" but also "more water".

So if people wish to maintain the distinction themselves, for aesthetic reasons, that's absolutely fine: but I don't think they have a case for attempting to enforce it on others.

"Uninterested / disinterested" etc I feel are worth fighting over, because they can be used to express genuinely different meanings. But I don't think that's true of "less" and "fewer".

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

My broad sympathies lie with you, and my instinct is just to applaud this excellent trashing of annoying grammar pedantry and have done with it.

But reading some of the comments has got me thinking and now I want to see where it leads.
- Suppose we conceptualise language as a game
- Games have rules, so does language
- But where most games have instructions, language does not
- So, as you say, the rules are defined by usage, and ultimately if a variant is used enough it can become legitimate even if it wasn't before
- But then at some point people have started trying to codify the rules (this is a good idea if you think of language as a game - why would you play a game if you don't know the rules? This is why I hate mao)
- But not everyone (indeed possibly not even a majority of people) reads the rules, so the previous mechanism of change persists
- Perhaps codification has not been going for long enough. Eventually natural linguistic change will leave such attempts in the dust. Result? Two languages, I guess. Probably the codified version will end up, like latin, used only in formal contexts

Anyway, that was a bit rambly. I'll finish by saying that I find it interesting that language-lovers would die in a ditch defending some archaic rule, when the very best thing about language is in fact its ability to evolve.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

What happens in practice (in English, at least) is that people bring out codified rules (dictionaries, usage guides, etc) in regular editions every few years, attempting to sweep up the changes in rules that have become generally accepted since the previous edition. It is an inexact science of course, with lots of judgement calls required, but the beauty of it is that anything which is sufficiently out of whack with what people are actually doing automatically obsoletes itself.

French is a bit different (and Dutch, from what mrlloyd says below) in that rather than a bunch of independent and competing dictionaries etc, the govt declared the rules and rarely admits modifications. But in France this has pretty much had the effect you describe in your last bullet.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

PS the correct response to such comments is "whatevs", together with the appropriate hand gesture. Tesco should have done a big banner, or something.

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

But Tesco's use of less is _wrong_. The fact that many people don't realise or care that it's wrong strikes me as a little silly. If a newspaper argued that "the Tories were likely to win the election because after asking 100 people, the 1% more of them preferred Tory to Labour", then anyone with A level maths would wince at the specious reasoning, but the majority of people wouldn't realise.

If your argument is that it's only wrong because of a subjective and arbitrary set of rules say it is, then you've just placed your stake in a arbitrary position on a sliding scale, ranging from "Anyone who utters or writes a phrase not fully compliant with Strunk and White should be shot" to Humpty Dumpty's "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean".

If you expect me to defend the arbitrary rule about fewer vs less, then I expect you to defend your arbitrary position on the sliding scale and why mixing up fewer/less is OK but disinterested/uniterested is wrong (or if you don't mind that, they're/their/there). :-)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

My position on the scale is that rules which confer variation in meaning or in other aspects of clarity are OK; ones that don't do so are essentially arbitrary.

So eg. "less" and "fewer" don't really differ in meaning; they only differ in the existence of this rule that declares that one should be applied to counts, the other to quantities. We happily apply "more" to both counts and quantities, so clearly it's not necessary to have two different words for its antithesis; just arbitrary convention.

On the other hand, "disinterested" and "uninterested" shouldn't be interchanged because they do have distinct meanings and their blurring may create ambiguity.

[rufusfrog.livejournal.com]

I think my real problem with 'less items' is not its wrongness but its ugliness.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Maybe they should do two versions, with the "less" checkout being slightly cheaper than the "fewer" one, to screen out middle-class aesthetes -- the same idea as the ugly "Value" packaging.

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Surely what we're really talking about is extending the meaning of less rather than removing the concept of fewer?

So I can have less water
I can also have less boxes

But I can't have fewer water

Now this is a fairly major adjustment, but the language does that a lot. Here in the Netherlands the language is terribly codified, with the government occassionally issuing rules as to how it should be used. The result is best illustrated by the annual TV show called 'The great dictation' in which the host reads out sentences and people have to write them down. You'd think this would be easy - right?

The results are then marked for correct spelling and grammar, and a winner is announced. The results show up two things 1) Belgians are better at this than the Dutch,2) Almost no-body is capable of using the language accurately.

Lock things down too tightly and you'll just end up with everyone being wrong. Dutch is in theory a much more straightforward language than English, with rules for spelling and everything...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I dread to think what sort of irritating people they would get to present an equivalent UK programme. I guess Ant and Dec are still in disgrace... anyway, they can't even spell "rhumble".