Less Is Fewer

Being a word lover, I'm fascinated by the English language, its rules, the way people break them, and the way they shift over time. English is an incredibly vital, alive language. It's constantly evolving, growing, absorbing, becoming. 

The meanings and pronunciations of words change from place to place and time to time in ways that can be both fascinating and/or frustrating. Ultimately, I'm a populist when it comes to usage. That is, while I hew to most grammatical rules and believe in using language carefully, I love the fluidity and the democracy of the language. I'm certainly not a grammar Nazi insisting people use words in a narrow, particular way. 

Still…I was reminded this weekend as I overheard a conversation at a restaurant, that I have my pet peeves. Misspoken phrases or mispronunciations or misuses that drive me up a wall. 

For example, even though double negatives have a history of grammatical correctness before Samuel Johnson began codifying grammar in his famous dictionary, they sound uneducated and wrong to me. 

There a couple others I can't think of now, but the misusage that really drives me up a wall—the one that really raises my hackles and makes my skin crawl—is the use of less when fewer should be used. This happens all the time and I just can't fucking stand it. (I never say anything, of course, because no one likes a grammar Nazi, but the teeth clench.)

Example? "You know less people than I do." No, I know fewer people than you do. Jackass.

It's a pretty simple rule to follow actually. Here's the deal, courtesy of e-Learn English: 

The words fewer and less are commonly confused in English. You'll be less confused and make fewer mistakes after reading through this lesson.

Fewer
Fewer is used with countable nouns: people, animals, chairs, shoes.

There should be fewer books on the table.

I have fewer ideas than everyone else.

Fewer of us show up each year.

Less
Less is used for uncountable, usually abstract nouns: money, happiness, snow, idealism.

I hope less snow falls this year.

We need more money and less debt.

I have less computer savvy than you.

You should spend less of your time complaining.

Less is also used with adjectives and adverbs:

I'm less happy than I used to be.

He runs less quickly than you.

The Bottom Line
Just remember that if the noun can be preceded by a number (one person, three dogs, six of us, nineteen problems), it should be modified with fewer. Otherwise, less is best.

Put another way, via Language Rules!:

Fewer should be used when the things you are describing are able to be counted. 

Less is used when is describes an adjective or when it is referring to something that is not countable; it is used to describe abstract or imprecise things like time, speed, quality, etc. 
…
A good rule of thumb, while certainly not hard and fast, is to look at what you’re referring to; if it’s singular, use less; if it’s plural, use fewer.

Capice? 

404? Read This

Since we're most of us are texting nowadays, this list of net lingo should be required reading. Your thumbs will thank you.

(It's the place to go IMHO. CYA.)

Brevity Is…

Tell your stories in one sentence.

Want To Play Gay Chicken?

1. Gay chicken. A game where two people of the same sex (and preferably straight) put their faces closer and closer until one of them chickens out. If none of them do, then they get closer until they kiss.
5. Gay chicken. When two heterosexual people walk down the mall with their hands together until one cant take it anymore, letting go and losing

Who knew?

For more new slang, head on over to the Urban Dictionary.

h/t: Daily Dish

Barack Hussein Obama

Since we're going to be dealing with inane, racist smears on Obama's middle name for at least the next nine months, we might as well some good etymological info to innoculate ourselves with. Read Juan Cole's excellent article on the Semetic origins of several American heroes' names.

Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes

I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!

…

Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: "And God blessed (ḇāreḵə) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

…

Let us take Benjamin Franklin. His first name is from the Hebrew Bin Yamin, the son of the Right (hand), or son of strength, or the son of the South (yamin or right has lots of connotations). The "Bin" means "son of," just as in modern colloquial Arabic. Bin Yamin Franklin is not a dishonorable name because of its Semitic root. By the way, there are lots of Muslims named Bin Yamin.

As for an American president bearing a name derived from a Semitic language, that is hardly unprecedented.

John Adams really only had Semitic names. His first name is from the Hebrew Yochanan, or gift of God, which became Johan and then John. (In German and in medieval English, "y" is represented by "j" but was originally pronounced "y".) Adams is from the biblical Adam, which also just means "human being." In Arabic, one way of saying "human being" is "Bani Adam," the children of men.

Thomas Jefferson's first name is from the Aramaic Tuma, meaning "twin." Aramaic is a Semitic language spoken by Jesus, which is related to Hebrew and Arabic. In Arabic twin is tau'am, so you can see the similarity. 

Blogtionary

I've been meaning to write this post for some time now and just haven't gotten around to it. My enthusiasm for election year politics has derailed most other interests. But I've been inspired by Slate's Barackopedia, and besides, I can't have a blog that's All Obama All The Time. Even I'm not that much of a fanboi. 

Anyway, since the advent of the word blog into the vernacular, there has been at least one spinoff neologism, vlog (meaning video blog). Now surely, with 6 billion-plus people in the world there must be some others out there, but I've not come across any. 

So I've taken upon myself to create a few more and document them here so I can take full credit should they ever enter the mainstream. Here they are for your reading pleasure.

phlog: Photo blog. A blog that features photos only with little to no commentary (see Stuck in Customs)

frog: A friend's blog. A blog that is read primarily by one's circle of friends (see Insatiable Itch) 

pollog or plog: A political blog. A blog that focuses primarily on politics (see Washington Monthly's Political Animal)

Feel free to send me your entries via the comments thread. I'll give full credit for any that I use (you know, so the four people who actually read this can know it was yours).