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.

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.

[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.

[theo]

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

[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.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

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.

Modern misuse is of no interest to me. Historical precedent matters only insofar as it is not simply a few hundred years of ongoing misuse!

The type idea isn't anything terribly arcane. It's simply the observation that whilst measurement scales often correlate in a natural way (for example "heavier" goes with "taller", not "shorter") that doesn't mean we should merge all concepts which correlate in this way.

Having "less" and "fewer" available as distinct has the advantage that they can be used to express different ideas. What corresponding advantage is conferred by overloading the former?

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?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I apparently cannot spell.

[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.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Having "less" and "fewer" available as distinct has the advantage that they can be used to express different ideas. What corresponding advantage is conferred by overloading the former?

I don't think they do express significantly different ideas. If they did, it wouldn't be practical to use "more" as the antithesis of both.

a few hundred years of ongoing misuse!

Do you have a way of distinguishing evolutionary shift in use from "misuse"? Many modern accepted usages were considered misuses by our predecessors. I think if a shift in use has become sufficiently dominant, then it's nonsensical to continue talking of it as a misuse. Otherwise the standard you're trying to hold the language up to is an ideal one that no longer exists.

As an example, the (not very) modern use of "you" as the general second person pronoun, which confusingly blurs the distinction between singular and plural. We can probably all think of times when saying "you", people have been unsure whether one person or several were referred to. Doesn't your argument suggest that we should go back to using "thou"?

[theo]

Ah! Fallibility is so charming.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Going back is a whole different matter! But yes, I definitely agree that it would be better to have kept the distinction.

If they did, it wouldn't be practical to use "more" as the antithesis of both.

Not true. It's practical because analysing the noun almost always gives away which sense is intended.

Still, I suppose that allows you to argue that less-as-fewer is different from most other type errors because it would also have this property.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Personally I feel that usage should be our arbiter.

I like this approach, but not in the context of correctness metrics.

If people want to evolve usage they can do so whether or not it's correct. What's the motivation for adjusting our concept of correctness. What do we gain?

[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]

Yes, I suppose that is what I'm arguing really, although I leapt over that to say that (therefore) there's not a significant distinction between them as modifiers.

How do you decide whether a change is "going back" or not? Clearly Tesco's are being asked to go back, because the "fewer" usage is rarer now than it used to be, and advocates want to reverse that tide. But some people (Quakers etc) still use "thou": in theory, that could be reversed as well if enough people wanted to. At what point of widespreadness or of time passing do you accept that a "misuse" is now accepted and there's no longer any point resisting it?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ah, well I don't really believe in correctness metrics in that sense. I think the language is defined by its usage, so anything sufficiently used is de facto correct.

Re: Points granted but

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

What other word was lost for more to cover both? I don't object to words which can do more work, just losing (even superfluous) ones I'm fond of.

[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.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

At what point of widespreadness or of time passing do you accept that a "misuse" is now accepted and there's no longer any point resisting it?

This isn't a problem for me personally since I know nothing about historical use of language. As such, just using language as correctly as I am capable of is sufficient.

As far as less-as-fewer goes, you are the first person I've ever encountered who defends it as correct rather that merely too trivial to care about. If this becomes a trend, I might be less resistant to its adoption in future.

Re: Points granted but

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I guess I'm more heartless, I don't mind the loss of superfluous ones...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

There's an interesting article on Language Log I saw a little while ago, that helped clarify my own thinking about it.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that "clarify" is a word I'd use in association with something quite that rambling, but certainly an interesting link, thanks!

[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. ;-)

[theo]

Good point! Consider my position to be adjusted.

[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.