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.
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Date: 2008-09-06 01:46 am (UTC)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.