Fewer should indeed be used specifically with countable things. It does not follow that therefore less can only be used with uncountable things. That’s not how language works. Less has been used with countable objects for as long as English has been a language. Here’s Wikipedia’s take on it. And a grammar blog.
Basically some guy in the 18th century said “I prefer using ‘fewer’ for countable things and ‘less’ for uncountable things” and a bunch of people decided it must be a rule. But it’s not.
Takes me back to a lovely old Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly, where someone was asked to “stench the flow of invective.”
Sure! Math uses a bunch of words differently from ordinary speech. Our imaginary numbers are not imaginary, even though they aren’t real. 2 is a complex number, but 1.999~ is a simple one. We commute in closed groups, and distribute in open ones. We can recite “Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrization
of Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifold” and laugh!
Supposedly, they also had/have a “short” size but it’s not normally on the menu. I’ve never tried ordering one to test.
Episopalian/Anglican and some Lutherans, yes. But even the Catholic orders vary on attire, and many Catholic priests dress plainclothes or in various robe-type garments during services, no collar.
That’s an interesting case, and yeah, sometimes they aren’t counted among Protestants, being post-Reformation. Which is kind of odd as Methodists are considered Protestant and they’re a newer offshoot of Anglicanism (although the Wesleys initially weren’t intending to form their own religion).
I’ve seen Catholic priests wearing Roman-collar shirts in colors other than black, too. Some priests when they’re “off-duty” prefer to wear the same sort of clothes as anyone else, while others prefer to wear clothes that are more casual than vestments but which still identify them as priests.
How could you tell? The incorrect “should of” sounds exactly the same as the correct “should’ve”, when spoken.
Lutherans do, or at least the pastor at the only Lutheran church I’ve been to did.
I remember seeing an ad for a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson (Google tells me it must have been Raising Helen) in which Hudson was very surprised that a Catholic priest (in a black shirt and white collar) had asked her out. It turns out he was actually a Lutheran pastor, and thus had not been required to take a vow of celibacy.
Starbucks has short cups. They aren’t on the menu, but you can ask for them.
More an error on my part - in my old truck it takes forever to hear that final fucking “click” of the seatbelt locking into place. I can spend a good minute trying to re-jam the stupid fucking belt, over and over, sometimes trying to ease it in, other times just bashing away at the bloody thing. Meanwhile I’ve pulled onto a busy street.
In English we generally use the plural verb for multiple subjects, e.g., “The dog and cat are fighting.” But we commonly say such things as “One plus two is three.” It’s as though it’s understood that a mathematical operator is a conjunction that forms a singular noun out of multiple nouns. I’ve been reading books about mathematics in Latin, and there you get a plural verb, e.g., “Ūnus plūs duo sunt trēs.”
It highlights the “loss of identity” of the addends. One plus two no longer exist as “one” and “two” but are melted and congealed into “three.” There isn’t any “are” left, only an “is.”
(Hm… “Flour plus eggs plus water plus milk is dough…”) ???
Actually, both pronunciations are correct, according to Merriam Webster’s online dictionary – Caramel Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Unique is absolutely one of a kind, and thus, nothing can be more unique than anything else. But, of course, context is everything. It’s bad form to switch context in the middle of a concept.
If I claim that my car is unique because of its serial number, that is strictly true. It’s pointing out a difference between your car and every other car. You then can’t switch context and say that your car is less unique than any other car because it’s red and red is a common color.
Two things are only the same if you define the context such that that statement is true. Once you change context, it’s like changing the channel – you are starting with a clean slate with completely different rules of comparison.
All comparisons work like that – you have to stick within a specific context, or they can fall apart. If I say, for example, that an old book I have is rarer than another, am I talking about a specific printing, am I talking about the title as a whole, or am I talking about the fact that it is a signed by the author? Without the context, there are too many ways to interpret it. And once that context is set, you can only dispute it within the confines of that specific context, because by changing context, you are no longer disagreeing with what the original statement, you are disagreeing with an incorrect interpretation of that statement.
Yes, because only you way of speaking is correct.
Never mind that those Other People talk differently. They’re poor. And they look weird. And they have different-colored (darker, usually) skin. They don’t count as literate, and barely count as human.
Nope. You’re right, they’re wrong.
Damn, but that is patronizing.
I think everyone, no matter their income level or pigmentation, is quite capable of learning standard usage, and using it when appropriate. We all have our casual and personal language, but there is a standard that those in power will judge us to, and we do no one any favor if we decide they need not learn it.
“Never mind that those Other People have fewer educational opportunities. They’re poor. They don’t need to be able to communicate effectively outside their immediate environment. They are not the cultural standard, so why should they ape it with their speech?”
Everyone can and does learn standard usage. The problem is, we all use different standards.
Such an simple world you live in. Never needing to think critically about your thoughts and opinions since only racists would ever disagree with you.
I just finished reading a rather scholarly book, full of difficult science. Repeatedly throughout, the word “fair” was used when it should have been “fare.” “This species did not *fair *well during the ecological crisis.” Worse, the author (or his editor) used “loose” for “lose.” Come on! Why should I trust your words on the difficult things when you can’t (or can’t be bothered to) get the easy things right?
Because I was the one saying “should’ve”. They were “correcting” me.
Here’s from a source wikipedia cites:
Standards differ, or else we would all be speaking The Queen’s English. Dialects differ on pronunciation and usage.
Most recently on the Walking Dead…
But in just about every movie/TV show with semi auto hand gun has the character rack the slide back before doing something with the gun. Even policeman and military personnel in uniform will take the weapon from their holster and rack the slide before going into a situation. So in other words they are walking around all day with a empty barrel and then have to rack a round in to get the gun working. Thank goodness nothing bad happens to them and they have to respond immediately or they would be shot or eaten by zombies trying to charge their weapon!
I never watched King of Queens when it was on CBS.
But I have been watching Reruns on TVland and TBS. The outside of the house does not matchup with the interior of the living room
The living room has windows on both sides of the front door. The outdoor shot of the house has the front door on the extreme right side of the house.
tiny error, but it shows up in nearly every episode.
There’s no way the inside of the Brady Bunch house had the number of rooms it looked like from the outside.