Lingua Franca at CHE

You have words - now what do you do with them?
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Slava
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Lingua Franca at CHE

Postby Slava » Wed Nov 27, 2013 9:54 am

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.
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brogine
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Re: Lingua Franca at CHE

Postby brogine » Wed Feb 19, 2014 8:44 pm

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.

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Slava
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Re: Lingua Franca at CHE

Postby Slava » Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:27 pm

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.
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Perry Lassiter
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Re: Lingua Franca at CHE

Postby Perry Lassiter » Thu Feb 20, 2014 2:24 pm

Merely straddling the fence, afraid to take a stand.
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