From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: "Grammar"
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:55:15 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.211701.7761@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.180206.15766@Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>>Indeed, but you seem to have edited out the whole bit about numbers of
>>>words, and *amounts* of "stuff" vs. *numbers* of items.

>>Post it again if you'd like.

>You had said that the criterion should be how much "stuff" one has, thus
>making the usage "ten items or less <stuff>" grammatically correct.

>The important issue at the checkout is how *many*
>*items* (not how *much* items, etither) you have, not how much stuff.
>You can have 12 cans of tuna and they'll push you into the regular
>line. 

Not at my supermarket.  They just scan one and punch "x12."

> You can have 5 huge cartons of diapers, a Perdue butterball
>turkey, and one of those huge aluminum turkey trays, and you'll get on
>just fine.  If the limit were based on something linear, such as
>volume ("1000 cubic inches or less") or weight ("10 pounds or less"),
>then we'd be talking about stuff.  But here we're discussing *items*.

Fine.  However, the issue of countability is so unimportant to the
more important concept of "less than" in the arithmetic sense that 
people don't sweat the distinction, and the distinction fades, and
eventually it disappears.  

That's how language changes.

>>10 items, no more, no less.

>Fewer.

Why do you say that?  My sentence was correct, idiomatic English.

>>>So why bother speaking well at all?  

>>To quote someone I don't normally quote, "There you go again."  

>And there *you* go again, saying that because people have been doing it
>for so long, it couldn't possibly be wrong.

Do I say that?  Your anger seems to have blinded you.  Nothing about 
"couldn't possibly"; just a matter of definition.  How do we "define" right    
and wrong in language?  What are our criteria?  Our standards?  

>>> All writers (myself included) benefit from
>>>having others read their text so as to check for grammatical gaffes,
>>>awkward expressions, improper sentence structure, etc.  If I thought
>>>that everything I did was so good and standard, I'd just send it all
>>>right to the printer.

>>In other words, *they* don't have your standards.  

>Huh?  If you'd read it again, you'd notice I said "all writers (myself
>included)."  I've never once intimated that my writing is always beyond
>reproach. I'm just as capable of making an error as anyone else.

But it's *your* standard of right and wrong that you're concerned with.
This is not a good policy to have when writing copy.  Better to be aware
of the specific standards that the buyer has.

>>>>>  - Although it could be said that, "Well, that's their culture, and
>>>>>    they've been doing it that way for thousands of years, and who are
>>>>>    we to change it?"

>>Now *you* deleted something important: the original accusation that
>>"PC-people" always say this sort of thing.

>The amusing part is that many advocates of political correctness
>*do* say such things.

What's amusing?  And what does it have to do with these (unnamed, but
clearly evil) PC-people?  Lots of people say that.

>>> just as I've heard such arguments
>>>made about language...."That's what people use.  Why try to drum it out?"

>>Is it the same argument?  One has a moral cast--it relates to murder,
>>etc.  

>Not always.  In this particular case, it does refer to murder.  In others,
>the subject may be religion, farming practices, music, government, whatever.

In most of which cases, the accusation of PC-ness is wide of the mark.

>The point is that the suspension of all subjective judgment because "well,
>that's what they do and they've always done it that way" isn't *always*
>such a good thing.

So tell me about *this* case.

>>Language is for communicating with. 

>Ah, so we're back to the "as long as you can make yourself understood" school
>again?  

Again?  Well, yes.  You've accused me of this twice now.  Still wrong.     

The point is not "as long as."  The point is that successful communication
is the *standard* of usage; if people say it and other people get it, it's
language.  This has to be at the basis of any discussion about usage; if
it's not, then all you have left is a bunch of discussion about rules, such
as "less/fewer."  As long as communication is not impeded, the *reason* for
calling one thing "wrong" (As opposed to "at variance to what they do at
the Press") is hard to discern.  The *reason* for designating something an
error is hard to find.

>We could get by with grunts if we really had to...

But we can't, and you know that.  Nor do we want to.  

>>> just as on the street some people might recognize the error. 

>>PROPERLY: "would consider it an error."

>No, that isn't what I meant.  I meant *recognize* the error.  You see,

WHAT error?  How do you KNOW it's an error?  Tell me WHY it's an error.
And that doesn't mean "state the rule."

>Roger, we still decline pronouns in English.  "My friends and me went
>to the beach" is the same error as "me went to the beach."

Not in any meaningful sense.  Surely "the same" is an odd designation for
two things, one of which is common among native speakers, one of which
is only made by specific classes of speakers.  Surely "the same" is not     
a sensible designation for two things that come about by different means.

Besides, in structural terms, they are not the same.  Yes, we still decline
pronouns in English, but we do so partly on the basis of position, not
strictly by case in the Latin sense.  If the pronoun leads off the simple
sentence, it must take the subjective form.  If it comes first, and directly
before the verb, everyone uses the subjective.  That error doesn't happen.

But more complicated sentences, such as comparisons: 
  "She is as tall as me" 

and the one above, which has the "and" in it, make things more 
complicated, and people do *not automatically conjugate for case.

In a linguistic sense, in a teaching sense, in every sense but a Latin-
Grammar sense, they are different errors.

>Anyway, I for one am getting really tired of going round and round with you
>on this one, and I'm *quite* sure that everyone else in the group is getting
>rather bored with the whole affair, so there's no reason to waste any more
>net.traffic with it. 

Why not just post a definition of "error" and be done with it?  That's
most of what I've asked for.

>Roger, if you want to continue the discussion, feel free to send mail,
>thus sparing the net the flamage. 

Funny, you didn't respond to my last letter.

> If not, well, hey?  What can I say?
>You believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe, and neither
>of us seems likely of convincing the other.  I won't lose sleep over it.

Nor I.  But it seems sad that you can't even explain to me what you're
talking about.  I really would like to know just what you mean by "error."

Roger