JFC!!

[jarnon]

*supermarket grammar rules:

I dunno about where you live, but where I live the grammar police got all upset about signs in grocery checkout aisles that said "10 items or less". They insist they should read, to be grammatical "10 items or fewer". Meaning "fewer than 10 items", but that would take too many letters. They are right, technically, but it's a grocery checkout aisle, who cares? And now they've got me confused on where to use "less" & where to use "fewer" when I'm not in the grocery checkout aisle.

A friend of mine in college was from your area. He was once in a supermarket in Cambridge. A guy got into the "10 items or less" line with too many items. The shopper behind him asked: "Do you go to Harvard and not know how to count, or do you go to MIT and not know how to read?"

[Estonut]

And on that other subject, I notice he's now signing things "lb13", but he didn't used to, I don't think.

Wow! You just noticed something he's done 25,932 times since October 2007.

[littlebeast13]

And on that other subject, I notice he's now signing things "lb13", but he didn't used to, I don't think.

That may be the most oblivious comment ever from you!

http://web.archive.org/web/200104151948 ... &id=204046

lb13

[Ritterskoop]

mr

And now they've got me confused on where to use "less" & where to use "fewer" when I'm not in the grocery checkout aisle.

Ooh, ooh, ooh! I know this one!

If it is a thing we can count, like grocery items, we say "fewer".

If it is a thing we can't count, like amounts of water or sand (possibly large, hard-to-measure amounts as in an ocean or desert because I don't feel like dealing with gallons in a bathtub right now), we say "less". It's even better when it's things like "being less cautious" and "having less concern". These are things that are not at all measurable but we still have some idea of what is more or less.

"Less than" has different rules, for some reason. We can say we owe someone "less than $25," though I don't know why we wouldn't just say we owe him $23. That's how I would write around the problem at work. That's my secret - if I'm not sure of the rule, I write around it.

Bottom line, if you can count it, say "fewer".

[ghostjmf]

Thanks, Ritterskoop.

I admit I had never ever looked it up, nor understood why the grammar police locally were getting so bent out of shape, & just assumed it was a form of that rule where you use a different word as a subject vs an object. This was very enlightening.


It does make the grammar police look even more nitpicky than I even thought they were; bad grammar is one thing, but this is a rule I'd bet hardly anyone observes unless they're forced to, or they work in publishing, where people will descend upon you like vultures if you get it wrong.


The people who put up the signage in supermarkets are generally not in publishing.


But I go nutflakes whenever I hear or read someone use "pleaded" when they mean "plead", with the short-e pronunciation, even though I know it is now the official rule to do so. NPR does so. I don't do so. I keep thinking "yeah, 'readed' is next, just wait".

[Bob Juch]

Thanks, Ritterskoop.

I admit I had never ever looked it up, nor understood why the grammar police locally were getting so bent out of shape, & just assumed it was a form of that rule where you use a different word as a subject vs an object. This was very enlightening.


It does make the grammar police look even more nitpicky than I even thought they were; bad grammar is one thing, but this is a rule I'd bet hardly anyone observes unless they're forced to, or they work in publishing, where people will descend upon you like vultures if you get it wrong.


The people who put up the signage in supermarkets are generally not in publishing.


But I go nutflakes whenever I hear or read someone use "pleaded" when they mean "plead", with the short-e pronunciation, even though I know it is now the official rule to do so. NPR does so. I don't do so. I keep thinking "yeah, 'readed' is next, just wait".

Uh, "pleaded" is correct.

[TheConfessor]

But I go nutflakes whenever I hear or read someone use "pleaded" when they mean "plead", with the short-e pronunciation, even though I know it is now the official rule to do so. NPR does so. I don't do so. I keep thinking "yeah, 'readed' is next, just wait".

I think you mean "pled".
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pled

[tlynn78]

But I go nutflakes whenever I hear or read someone use "pleaded" when they mean "plead", with the short-e pronunciation, even though I know it is now the official rule to do so. NPR does so. I don't do so. I keep thinking "yeah, 'readed' is next, just wait".

I think you mean "pled".
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pled

That's how I've always used it.

[ghostjmf]

"pled" just doesn't look right to me. Maybe it is right spelling (see ref above) but I've always seen "plead" with it understood it gets the short-e as a past tense. Same as "read" gets a short-e when its past tense. "Led", on the other hand, as past tense for "lead", looks fine to me.


At any rate, there really was some kind of kerfuffle when a bunch of news agencies (NY Times, NPR among them) went over to using "pleaded". I'm still kerfuffling. And not gonna use "readed" or "leaded" just because some illiterate entity deems it the New Rule.


If someone says "I pleaded with the evil entity not to throw the baby out with the bathwater" I can accept that without my brain saying "moron" at them. But if it is written that "the evil entity avoided trial because they pleaded guilty", nuh uh. Its gotta be "the evil entity avoided trial because they plead guilty". So obviously there's something about active vs passive voice going on here in My Brain too.

[TheConfessor]

"pled" just doesn't look right to me.

Its gotta be "the evil entity avoided trial because they plead guilty".

At least you have the courage of your convictions.

[ghostjmf]

Here's a long thread where they agree I can't spell (they all go for "pled") but many agree with me otherwise, including the dates around which the news agencies switched over. I am not in this thread, by the way.

http://painintheenglish.com/case/4191/


And its not the only ref I found, either.

[TheConfessor]

Well-intentioned people are getting hurt with their escalating attempts at ice bucket challenge one-upmanship. I think the shark has been jumped.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/us/firefi ... challenge/