Please Portray Your Pleasant Pedantry Presently

Rico · January 15

People who use "awe" instead of "aww."

You are in awe of the Grand Canyon.

An adorable baby makes you say "aww."

Tiger_Lily · January 15

Not a grammar fail, but...

DH, in all seriousness: "I never generalize!"

Tennee · January 15

An English Lesson:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/english-lesson.html

LinguisticDreams · January 23

JellyBean said:

FEWER is used in relation to countable items. "Express lanes are for customers with 20 items or fewer."

LESS is used for uncountable things. "There is less water in my glass than in his glass."

To be even more pedantic:

"Less" has been used for both uncountable and countable things for the entire history of the English language since it began to be written. As an example, an actual 9th century king, Alfred the Great, wrote "Swa mid læs worda, swa mid ma" ("whether with less words, whether with more") in one of his works.

"Fewer", on the other hand, is a late 18th century posh invention, and it's pretty much the work of the Devil to confuse English speakers, if you ask me.

Reborn · January 23

LinguisticDreams said:

JellyBean said:

FEWER is used in relation to countable items. "Express lanes are for customers with 20 items or fewer."

LESS is used for uncountable things. "There is less water in my glass than in his glass."

To be even more pedantic:

"Less" has been used for both uncountable and countable things for the entire history of the English language since it began to be written. As an example, an actual 9th century king, Alfred the Great, wrote "Swa mid læs worda, swa mid ma" ("whether with less words, whether with more") in one of his works.

"Fewer", on the other hand, is a late 18th century posh invention, and it's pretty much the work of the Devil to confuse English speakers, if you ask me.

Excellent! I must commit that to memory.

Geekengineer · January 23

Chief_TC said:

I get RPMs, but what's wrong with VINs?

What if I am asking someone for multiple VIN numbers?

*I see my own redundancy also...

Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

I meant "VIN number."

Vehicle Identification Number number.

r9stone · January 23

A friend's son, who determined that he "didn't need no college diploma," just posted some of last years' hunting trip pictures on his facebook page with the following caption:

"Defiantly missing hunting right now, can't wait until spring!"

r9stone · January 23

Geekengineer said:

Chief_TC said:

I get RPMs, but what's wrong with VINs?

What if I am asking someone for multiple VIN numbers?

*I see my own redundancy also...

Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

I meant "VIN number."

Vehicle Identification Number number.

Same as in baseball when people talk about the number of RBI's a player has.

Runs's Batted In?????

Zoroaster · January 26

r9stone said:

A friend's son, who determined that he "didn't need no college diploma," just posted some of last years' hunting trip pictures on his facebook page with the following caption:

"Defiantly missing hunting right now, can't wait until spring!"

Dude might have gotten some "help" from autocorrect on that one.