I've always loved grammar and language and reading and writing. I'm a bit of an overzealous enthusiast. Some might call me a Nazi of sorts and that's fine. And even I make mistakes; I have issues with apostrophes when words end in S. Always have, always will. I still don't know where the punctuation goes when I'm writing a quote or citing a source in a paper. And that's fine.
If someone says "on accident" I don't correct them. If there's an extra apostrophe in a sign somewhere of course I'll change it, but always surreptitiously, I don't want to call anyone out and embarrass them.
Really.
I don't correct people even when it involves my most hated of all grammatical errors: using the word less instead of fewer (mainly because I'd be correcting everyone constantly). No one ever switches it around the other way because saying "I drank fewer coffee than usual today" sounds weird to pretty much everyone. But for some reason I'm one of the few people that thinks it's icky when people say "I had less cups of coffee today". (See, I have NO idea where to put that period.) (Or this one).
Digression averted.
I honestly have a physical reaction when someone uses less incorrectly. I know that makes me a bit of a crazy and again I'm okay with that. I have written blogs about proper grammar. I've just recently posted a status update on Facebook with a gentle reminder about the differences between less and fewer. But what prompted me to write, to air my grievances and allow the world (or three* people) to catch a glimpse into the true nature of my grammar crazies, is that I've now sent two e-mails to two different companies informing them of their unfortunate and incorrect grammar, using less when they should be using fewer.
I know they don't care, I know they won't change it, and I know they'll think I'm a crazy beezy with nothing better to do with her time except feed her houseful of cats. And you know what? I am that.. except for the part about the cats. I know it won't do anything, but I feel better having sent them. One intern will skim my e-mail roll his eyes and hit delete, but maybe one of these days I can get one company to change it. My goal is to not have less replace fewer and end up in the dictionary as an acceptable alternative.
I yielded to unconscious and subconscious meaning the same thing and was NOT happy about it.
*Another fun rule is that numbers one through nine are spelled out and 10 and up are.. well, written like numbers. Tell your friends.
1 comment:
Re: * Interestingly enough – when it comes to spelling out numbers – it depends. The problem is that this depends entirely on the form of citation and rules you are following, for illustrative purposes let’s contrast legal citation to that of newspapers. Legal citation is generally governed by the Bluebook (there are several other guides, but let’s just stick with this one. Bluebook Rule 6.2 requires numbers zero to ninety-nine to be spelled out in text, footnotes, and endnotes. Many newspapers have their own style guides, but we’ll use the Associated Press’ Style Guide here. The AP’s general rule is to spell out only numbers one through nine. However, there is an exception when it comes to starting sentences with numbers. Those numbers need to be spelled out, unless it’s a year. Of course, if you want to start a sentence with a large number or one that would be cumbersome to spell out, the AP Style Guide suggests rewording the sentence.
Ma’am, for someone who is a self proclaimed Grammar Nazi, you’re playing pretty fast and loose with the rules. ;)
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