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A comment on Australian women are having fewer children, later in life. Parent comment

Re:Australian women are having fewer children, later in life by xupybd on Sunday November 29, 2015 @11:49PM (#10647775)
From the wiki page on this topic: "However, descriptive grammarians (who describe language as actually used) point out that this rule does not correctly describe the most common usage of today or the past and in fact arose as an incorrect generalization of a personal preference expressed by a grammarian in 1770:
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australian women are having fewer children, later in life by Stratoscope on Monday November 30, 2015 @12:39AM (#10647954)
I'm sure fewer people every year care whether you write "fewer" or "less". By now, many people could care less.

But quite a few will still notice and wonder why you didn't say "fewer", even if it's less of an issue than it used to be.

I think it's still worth it to get this "right", if only because fewer people will think less of your writing.

Watch out for that wiki page, if we're looking at the same one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less

This page seems rather biased; it's easily earned its "neutrality of this article is disputed" tag with crazy stuff like this:

> even most prescriptivists accept the most common usage "there are less cups of flour in this canister" [emphasis added]

Instead of worrying about the opinions of "prescriptivists" and "descriptivists", just listen to the people you know, hear, and read: would most of them really say "there are less cups of flour in this canister"? And does that sound fine, or a bit off, to your ear?

Of course, no one I know would say "there are fewer cups of flour in this canister" either - they would simply say "there's less flour in this canister". What do cups have to do with it?

Language does change, and usage that was once "wrong" becomes right. A good example is "because of" and "due to". There was a terribly confusing rule about which to use, but these days fewer and fewer people will care if you simply use "due to" in every context. "Due to" has won, and it's nice to have one less rule to worry about.

Alas, I don't think "fewer" and "less" are quite there yet.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australian women are having fewer children, later in life by hudibras on Monday November 30, 2015 @01:23AM (#10648097)
> By now, many people could care less.

This should be "couldn't care less."

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australian women are having fewer children, later in life by Stratoscope on Monday November 30, 2015 @01:28AM (#10648109)
Nope, but you get an upvote for noticing, thanks! :-)

I used "could care less" deliberately, in keeping with the cheeky spirit of my comment:

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/01/i-could-care-less....

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm

https://newrepublic.com/article/77732/grammar-puss-steven-pi... (scroll down)

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-13/features/ct-tr...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australian women are having fewer children, later in life by hudibras on Monday November 30, 2015 @02:06AM (#10648191)
I knew that you used it on purpose; just tossing you a softball, that's all.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australian women are having fewer children, later in life by Stratoscope on Monday November 30, 2015 @02:49AM (#10648299)
Ha! I should have known you were up to something, my friend.

Well played. And I mean that not in the sarcastic sense! :-)

[ Parent | on HN ]