BradP:Thanks for all of your replies. My post might have been a little negative, but you all gave good advice and make good points. Esperanto must really be a language of peace.

It's always a pleasure to exchange thoughts

Esperanto is a language for everything. You can choose to do whatever in it. You can talk with someone from halfway around the world. You can argue with a scholar. You can tell your neighbor to go :::: himself. You can even talk dirty in it (check this out: http://mindprod.com/esperanto/dirty.html) The very beauty of it is that it's a very living language in all facets of life.

Enjoy!!

The thing that gets me is that the more rules you learn, the more infuriated you will become when other people break them. Or, at least, that's true for me. It shouldn't matter, but when practically no-one, not even the BBC, seems to know the difference between "less" and "fewer", it really frustrates me! I guess ignorance really is bliss.

The difference being that "fewer" means that there is not as many of an collection of objects where as "less" is a Unix command

(While I do kind of know the difference (although it's more subconscious) things like that I just tend to not care about if someone gets it wrong - after all we've got these amazing abstract-thinking brains for a reason )

Actually according to the definition at dictionary.com, less can actually mean fewer.

I found the usage note interesting:

dictionary.com:Usage note:
Even though less has been used before plural nouns (less words; less men) since the time of King Alfred, many modern usage guides say that only fewer can be used in such contexts. Less, they say, should modify singular mass nouns (less sugar; less money) and singular abstract nouns (less honesty; less love). It should modify plural nouns only when they suggest combination into a unit, group, or aggregation: less than $50 (a sum of money); less than three miles (a unit of distance). With plural nouns specifying individuals or readily distinguishable units, the guides say that fewer is the only proper choice: fewer words; fewer men; no fewer than 31 of the 50 states.

Modern standard English practice does not reflect this distinction. When followed by than, less occurs at least as often as fewer in modifying plural nouns that are not units or groups, and the use of less in this construction is increasing in all varieties of English: less than eight million people; no less than 31 of the 50 states. When not followed by than, fewer is more frequent only in formal written English, and in this construction also the use of less is increasing: This year we have had less crimes, less accidents, and less fires than in any of the last five years.

So I'd say the distinction probably isn't worth getting irate about.

Oh, I thought that fewer was being used instead of less and that was the problem. Oh well.

ceigered:Oh, I thought that fewer was being used instead of less and that was the problem. Oh well.

Yeah, "fewer water", "fewer air" or whatever would indeed be untakeable. Can't say I've ever encountered that usage, but I wouldn't put it past people nowadays

I also get annoyed by incorrect usage.

Many supermarkets have special express checkout lanes marked something like "15 items or less". Some people pointed out that it should be "15 items or FEWER". It was a great day of joy for me when a regional supermarket chain threw out their "less" signs and replaced them with "fewer" signs. One step in the right direction, after millions in the wrong direction.

For the other grammar nerds out there, you might enjoy The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. The blog has photos of places where people use quotation marks, thinking that quotation marks mean emphasis, whereas they actually mean irony, so these signs end up with lots of amusing unintentional meetings. Like places selling "food". What is it, if not food?

There's another blog with photos of apostrophe abuse, but for the most part they lack the hilarious double meanings that make you want to pee your pants when reading the signs with the misused quotation marks.

Regarding "15 items or less", you might find this article interesting. Perhaps even opinion changing, who knows.

I agree with the viewpoint expressed there; the items in your shopping basket can be thought of as constituting an aggregated whole, so "less" is fine, even if you're keeping to the rule.

tommjames:Regarding "15 items or less", you might find this article interesting. Perhaps even opinion changing, who knows.

I disagree with it. The examples they give -- dollars, avocados, pounds, etc. -- these are all things that can be subdivided. While they can be ostensibly treated as "countable" I can give someone a quarter dollar, a half an avocado, a third of a pound. We may be arbitrarily giving a "cut-off point" of seven avocados, but there's nothing stopping us, in terms of making sense, from marking a cut-off point at six and a half avocados. For example, it makes complete sense to eat less than six and a half avocados per day.

However, I cannot bring nine and a half items to a supermarket checkout line. A half an item doesn't make sense. If you divide an item in half, you get two items, not two "half items". And what does dividing an item in half even mean?

Therefore, I think supermarket lanes should certainly say "fewer" items. The line between countability and uncountability is more nebulous for some words than for others, but I think it's fairly clear for "item".

For the record, I am not a hardline prescriptivist, and I wouldn't necessarily describe myself as a prescriptivist at all. I happily split infinitives, for example. I'm on the conservative end of the spectrum when it comes to changes in language, though I acknowledge and accept that languages evolve. But we need to make sure we're speaking the same language so we understand one another. Meaning is lost when people play it fast and loose with word meanings. Clarity is sacrificed to the god of "if people use it, it must be correct".

That's how we end up with fiendishly confusing pairs like "flammable" and "inflammable" (they both mean the same thing, though they appear to be opposites).

That's how we end up with the perfectly serviceable word "lectern" (A tall box that you stand behind for public speaking - its meaning clearly comes from a form of the Latin word "to read". Related words - lecture, legible, legend), which has by and large been replaced with "podium" (a box that you stand upon to speak - from the Greek word for foot, via Latin. Related words - podiatry, arthropod, etc).

When we arbitrarily change the meanings of words, we lose the ability to understand the general meanings of new words that we haven't seen before, and it makes things more difficult for everyone who speaks or studies the language.

A lot of these confusing pairs come from ignorance, from people who don't know the right word so they pick one that seems related. Or they misremember a word, or they mix words up unintentionally, and come up with atrocities like "irregardless". Gack!

Those unnecessary quotations are pretty funny.

But what about this one: "Any child not 'potty trained' must wear an approved swim diaper". Isn't it appropriate to put slang in quotation?