www.alphadictionary.com

The Chronicle of Higher Education web page has a section titled "Lingua Franca," which I recommend diving into. A nice feature is that it has an RSS feed, so you know when there is a new post.

Here is the latest one: http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca ... -but-when/

One bit of it made me think about a particular change in English. As more and more people do not understand the difference between less and fewer, more and more are writing less more and fewer less.

I've noticed an interesting situation of overcompensation re 'less' vs. 'fewer'. People will write something like 'He is expected to receive a sentence of fewer than five years', as if anything that can be enumerated must be considered in discrete units.

Less v. Fewer: a local grocery store has express lanes for people who aren't buying many items. One reads less, another reads fewer. I wonder if it is intentional.

Merely straddling the fence, afraid to take a stand.