I wish there were less of them, that way there’d be more room for non-lame rants.
ahem
Not helping…
Rants are countable, therefore the proper phrasing is, “I wish there were fewer of them.”
After all, what’s a lame rant without a nitpick?
Perhaps not, Subluminal…
Maybe big stinky wishes the rants were smaller, leaving more memory for other types of rants.
How about a hijack?
[hijack]
I never heard the term “countable” for that rule. I learned the rule “If the plural ends with an ‘s’, use fewer since it doesn’t end with an ‘s’.” (i.e. fewer rants but less complaining)
[/hijacl]
Wait, are the rants weighted? Does a long lame rant count for more than an dumbass OP, even though the dumbass OP might be qualitatively greater?
Or, uhhh, less fewer, or something.
Can I add a random lame rant about nasty arm-poking, face-scraping, randomly-attacking, eye-gouging horrible-fecking-coloured umbrellas.
No? Oh, well.
No, Aro, please go ahead.
And, what about rants about “being lame”?..would those count? I tripped over absolutely nothing the other day and stubbed my baby toe…it really hurt and I was soooo mad.
I limped for the WHOLE DAY YAKNOW!!!
Sorry Auntnut, but I think a fair definition of lame would include permanent disability, but would unfortunatley exclude baby toe stubbage due to its temporary nature.
Damn!
You smart people are REALLY starting to piss me off.
(By the way, have I ever told you just how much I HATE technicalities?)
Take heart, there might actually be a loophole. The reason your particular rant would not qualify is because when you wrote the rant, you were not (at that moment) lame. Therefor no lame (present tense) rant.
However, were you to rush from the site of the stubbing, after filing the proper reports of course, and actually limped right up to the keyboard and sat down with a wimper, I think the general consensus would gravitate towards an actual lame rant.
So, don’t give up hope and wear flip flops. Some day you too could waste space and piss off smelly pete.
Yeah, this is the rule I’ve learned. Less sand, fewer marbles.
Nice.
You mean like this?
No, no, no – when it comes to lame rants there’s so much of the fuckers that they’re practically uncountable.
I would rather another lame Pit rant (which are fun to mock) then another dumbass “who would beat who” thread in Cafe Society or worse another “Ask the Attention Whore” in MPSIMS.
Some lame rants actually turn into something fun, while the thread types mentioned above start out lame and spiral downhill from there.
So your worse nightmare thread would be Who would beat the “Ask the lame ranter” guy? *
- presumably this would be posted in GQ?
Well, it’s a good rule-of-thumb, but I still say “fewer sheep” not “less sheep.”
I vote for more interesting rants, be they important or not.
The Columbia Guide to Standard American English says “Standard English still usually requires this basic pattern: use less with mass nouns and fewer with plural count nouns, as in less employment, fewer jobs. But Common English—and even some Standard—increasingly uses less with plurals, especially after than.”
and
“less” vs “fewer”
and
Fewer or Less?
Close. Worse would be the who would win Batman or the “Ask the Attention Whore” guy?
And it would be posted in either Cafe Society or IMHO.
