In the grand scheme of things, we Anglophones tend to speak how the words come out and we don't really go in for precision or pedantry when it comes to grammar rules - we leave that to the French. But there is one area which is becoming increasingly contentious: the use of "less" is starting to replace "fewer" to the latter's detriment, and some are finding it hard to accept. Including me.
When we decided to have two words to describe a reduction in something, it was for good reason, even though it was, to put not too fine a point on it, unnecessary. In English, the word "fewer" is the opposite of the word "more". But so is "less". So why the need for two words? Because we still have things that are countable and things that are uncountable. We also say "how much?" and "how many?" for the same reason. And this is where the confusion comes from.
When we say "how much does this cost?" what are we implying? And why not "how many"?
Because we can count pounds, dollars and euro, but not money as a concept. So we're asking "how much [money] does it cost?"
The same goes for light, time, sand, paint, water, wood and snow. We can't count them as a concept.
But we can count the number of lights, the number of minutes, grains or buckets of sand, litres of paint, glasses of water, blocks of wood and centimetres of snow.
So naturally, a language like English, which is owned by both no-one and everyone at the same time, will allow flexibility in fluent speech - mistakes like confusing "less" and "fewer" are going to happen. And that is fair enough.
But not in written language - it just looks unprofessional. When I see a quantity/number mistake on a website trying to sell me something, it comes across as sloppy to the point of off-putting. Like the "ten items or less" signs at some supermarket checkouts.
Here is a chart to help you:
NUMBER = implies a grouping of things you can count, e.g.
the number of chickens on a farm
the number of words on a page
the number of bottles of beer drunk at a festival
the number of people on a bus
the number of times you eat per day
AMOUNT = implies there's a volume, so you can't count it, e.g.
the amount of time to sail from Dover to Calais
the amount of water needed to fill a pond
the amount of sugar in every cola bottle
the amount of noise your neighbours make
the amount of yellow paint needed to change blue to green
So....
I have a lot of chickens, you have fewer chickens than me, but you have more sheep.
There are 459 words on this page, many of them are conjunctions and articles.
25,989 bottles of beer were drunk at the festival, quite a lot fewer than last year.
There are 44 people on the bus, 22 standing and the same number sitting.
She eats only breakfast, lunch and dinner, but he eats two or three snacks between mealtimes.
It takes 1 hour 45 minutes to sail to Calais, but the tunnel takes far less time.
I use more water to fill my pond than to have a shower, but less water than it takes to fill my swimming pool.
There is a smaller amount sugar in a Mars bar than in a can of cola.
A fleet of aircraft makes less noise than my neighbours.
You need 3 parts blue, 2 parts yellow to make a leaf green colour, but use more yellow for olive green.
More is the odd one out, because it's for both countable and uncountable things.
COUNTABLE:
(number)
The most - many/a lot of - fewer - a few - few - the fewest
UNCOUNTABLE:
(amount)
The most - much/a lot of - less - a little - little - the least
Let's learn something.
Saturday 27 September 2014
Saturday 9 August 2014
The Present may not be Perfect, but it is Continuous...
People try to dismiss this tense, but it has a very handy feature, namely signifying something that began or happened in the past but has an effect now.
Have you ever wondered why we say a sentence like this? What does it mean? The use of the word "ever" means "in your life until now", therefore shows something that began in the past and is still relevant at the time you say it.
We can use a continuous form or a simple form, illustrated below with another sentence to add context:
A. Last Friday, I bought a book.
B. I have been reading it on-and-off since then.
C. I have read 129 pages.
Here, we see the tenses in action. The past simple in A is used for a time no longer relevant to now. We nearly always need to say when you are talking about, like last Friday, unless it's obvious or the context has already been set, e.g. "Shakespeare lived in London for many years," or "the last World Cup was a triumph."
The present perfect continuous form in B signifies that the action of reading the book started in the past and continues now. The emphasis in this case is on how long? as the continuous form often puts the emphasis on an action or process, and not on a situation or state.
In C, the context shifts to exactly that - a situation or state. This is clear, as the speaker is saying how many pages he/she has read up until now.
Using the present perfect doesn't always mean the action or situation is complete, nor does it mean it is incomplete. It is just an indicator of the current state of the process or situation.
Let us look at various contexts in more detail:
1. There is a use for the present perfect where the most up-to-date information is used in the present perfect. For simplicity, I call this new news:
"Three men have escaped from a high-security prison in Cumbria. They fooled the night guards into believing they were sick with food poison and at the guards' most vulnerable moment, tied them to the prison rails. They are believed to be hiding in the forest near the prison."
"Damn, I've lost my pen. I left it on the table and went to the bathroom, and now it's gone!"
In the first, they are obviously still not back in the hands of the law. The rest is just relating the story, all of which happened in the past.
In the second, the pen is missing now. So both points related to that are in the present perfect. The middle part is the person thinking about the sequence of events leading up to it, and for that he/she needs the past.
2. We can use some words to signify our use of the present perfect, for example for, since, ever, and just.
FOR
We use for in the present perfect to signify a length of time, e.g.
"I have been here for four days."
This means you came four days ago.
But I can use this in other tenses too. Check out the difference:
A. "I stayed in the hotel for a week."
B. "I have been staying at this hotel for a week."
C. "I am staying at this hotel for a week."
A - this is of course part of a conversation about a time in the past. It probably needs "last summer" or some such information attached to it.
B - you are clearly there now, and arrived a week ago.
C - this is your plan, and bears no relation to when you arrived.
SINCE
We use since to determine a time you first arrived, and can only be used in the present perfect, both simple and continuous.
"I have lived here since July 1985."
"We have been sitting here since 3 o'clock."
EVER
In the present perfect, this is used to say in your life until now, and mainly in questions. It can of course be used in other tenses, as follows:
"Have you ever eaten an insect?"
"I wonder if Shakespeare ever visited Italy."
"I have my doubts if we will ever see world peace."
JUST
We use just to talk about what happened a few seconds ago, or is a moment we would say was extremely recent:
"Give us a moment to relax, we have just arrived!"
"Lucky we learned to drive before we moved here; the only supermarket in town has just closed down!"
So as you see, the present perfect is a very useful tense indeed, and like in everything we do, we should not translate tenses directly into our own languages as there is often a different way of handling these things. Always look at the context.
Keep learning!
Have you ever wondered why we say a sentence like this? What does it mean? The use of the word "ever" means "in your life until now", therefore shows something that began in the past and is still relevant at the time you say it.
We can use a continuous form or a simple form, illustrated below with another sentence to add context:
A. Last Friday, I bought a book.
B. I have been reading it on-and-off since then.
C. I have read 129 pages.
Here, we see the tenses in action. The past simple in A is used for a time no longer relevant to now. We nearly always need to say when you are talking about, like last Friday, unless it's obvious or the context has already been set, e.g. "Shakespeare lived in London for many years," or "the last World Cup was a triumph."
The present perfect continuous form in B signifies that the action of reading the book started in the past and continues now. The emphasis in this case is on how long? as the continuous form often puts the emphasis on an action or process, and not on a situation or state.
In C, the context shifts to exactly that - a situation or state. This is clear, as the speaker is saying how many pages he/she has read up until now.
Using the present perfect doesn't always mean the action or situation is complete, nor does it mean it is incomplete. It is just an indicator of the current state of the process or situation.
Let us look at various contexts in more detail:
1. There is a use for the present perfect where the most up-to-date information is used in the present perfect. For simplicity, I call this new news:
"Three men have escaped from a high-security prison in Cumbria. They fooled the night guards into believing they were sick with food poison and at the guards' most vulnerable moment, tied them to the prison rails. They are believed to be hiding in the forest near the prison."
"Damn, I've lost my pen. I left it on the table and went to the bathroom, and now it's gone!"
In the first, they are obviously still not back in the hands of the law. The rest is just relating the story, all of which happened in the past.
In the second, the pen is missing now. So both points related to that are in the present perfect. The middle part is the person thinking about the sequence of events leading up to it, and for that he/she needs the past.
2. We can use some words to signify our use of the present perfect, for example for, since, ever, and just.
FOR
We use for in the present perfect to signify a length of time, e.g.
"I have been here for four days."
This means you came four days ago.
But I can use this in other tenses too. Check out the difference:
A. "I stayed in the hotel for a week."
B. "I have been staying at this hotel for a week."
C. "I am staying at this hotel for a week."
A - this is of course part of a conversation about a time in the past. It probably needs "last summer" or some such information attached to it.
B - you are clearly there now, and arrived a week ago.
C - this is your plan, and bears no relation to when you arrived.
SINCE
We use since to determine a time you first arrived, and can only be used in the present perfect, both simple and continuous.
"I have lived here since July 1985."
"We have been sitting here since 3 o'clock."
EVER
In the present perfect, this is used to say in your life until now, and mainly in questions. It can of course be used in other tenses, as follows:
"Have you ever eaten an insect?"
"I wonder if Shakespeare ever visited Italy."
"I have my doubts if we will ever see world peace."
JUST
We use just to talk about what happened a few seconds ago, or is a moment we would say was extremely recent:
"Give us a moment to relax, we have just arrived!"
"Lucky we learned to drive before we moved here; the only supermarket in town has just closed down!"
So as you see, the present perfect is a very useful tense indeed, and like in everything we do, we should not translate tenses directly into our own languages as there is often a different way of handling these things. Always look at the context.
Keep learning!
Monday 14 July 2014
Be nice to the apostrophe - it may just save your reputation
Too many people in the English speaking world seem to put speed before punctuation. Good punctuation has often been a clue for prospective employers as to their candidates' appropriateness for employment. Not so much any more, although it is still a helpful decider when it gets to the final shortlist. Several friends of mine got interviews simply on their ability to punctuate correctly. These days, of course, it's way further down the list, but it is once again recouping its status as an integral part of the basic package of education. Not before time.
The apostrophe is a simple yet highly efficient symbol and helps the reader follow what you have written, because in text form there is no voice or face to hear your voice or see your face. Punctuation acts as a signpost to language and helps what I call "the voice in your head" know how to intonate written text. And emoticons are yet to make it into professional correspondence, it is only right that people use punctuation until a better system can be found. But I doubt there is one.
So let us begin by looking at the apostrophe's uses:
1. As a possessive (Saxon genitive):
We write "Phil's book" and "Jana's phone" because it helps us know it's a possession.
We write "My sister's houses" and "my sisters' houses" to show how many sisters. The apostrophe before the "s", only one sister; the apostrophe after, more than one.
In spoken English you would have to say it differently to make sure the listener was aware how many you were talking about, so you might actually say "my three sisters' houses", "both my sisters' houses", or the like.
2. As a shortening of certain verbal forms
a. "he/she/it is":
"It's a beautiful day."
"He's a handsome fellow."
"She's painting a wall."
b. "(s)he has":
"She's got a new car."
"He's been to the shop."
c. "they are":
"They're lovely apples."
d. "we have":
"We've waited for so long."
e. "I would"
"I'd like a kilo of tomatoes, please."
Et cetera...
And now where it is misused or ignored:
1. In possessive pronouns like "its":
As we have seen, "it's" means "it is", because we are removing part of the word.
"Its" is used as a possessive like "his" and "her". We wouldn't say "hi's legs", so why would we say "it's legs"? The apostrophe is to show there is something missing, and here it is clearly not being used because it follows the same pattern as "his" and "her" (see the etymology section at the end of the article).
2. In misspellings, like "they're", "there" and "their":
They are = "they're"
There = not here (just add a "t" to the beginning)
Their = belonging to them
Etymology:
English is a Germanic language, despite being over 50% populated with French and Latin words. This is because our oldest words are all Germanic. These are the words which have been in our language since before the Norman conquest in one form or another, and are usually the most important words, like prepositions (of, from, by, etc.), numbers, conjunctions (and, because, etc.), irregular verbs (sing/sang/sung, be/was/were/been, etc.) and names of basic things (seat, house, hat).
Therefore our personal pronouns are most probably going to be from Germanic too.
Let us take "his", "its" and "her" as a basis.
In all Germanic languages at one time or another there were cases (Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, etc.) and some still have them, like German. The "-s" in "his" and "its" is from the Germanic preference for that particular letter at the end of masculine and neuter words to signify there is a possessive involved.
The same applies to the "-er" in feminine possession. There is no mystery to it; no confusion needed - it is just due to the past and the English language's ties to other Germanic constructions!
The apostrophe is a simple yet highly efficient symbol and helps the reader follow what you have written, because in text form there is no voice or face to hear your voice or see your face. Punctuation acts as a signpost to language and helps what I call "the voice in your head" know how to intonate written text. And emoticons are yet to make it into professional correspondence, it is only right that people use punctuation until a better system can be found. But I doubt there is one.
So let us begin by looking at the apostrophe's uses:
1. As a possessive (Saxon genitive):
We write "Phil's book" and "Jana's phone" because it helps us know it's a possession.
We write "My sister's houses" and "my sisters' houses" to show how many sisters. The apostrophe before the "s", only one sister; the apostrophe after, more than one.
In spoken English you would have to say it differently to make sure the listener was aware how many you were talking about, so you might actually say "my three sisters' houses", "both my sisters' houses", or the like.
2. As a shortening of certain verbal forms
a. "he/she/it is":
"It's a beautiful day."
"He's a handsome fellow."
"She's painting a wall."
b. "(s)he has":
"She's got a new car."
"He's been to the shop."
c. "they are":
"They're lovely apples."
d. "we have":
"We've waited for so long."
e. "I would"
"I'd like a kilo of tomatoes, please."
Et cetera...
And now where it is misused or ignored:
1. In possessive pronouns like "its":
As we have seen, "it's" means "it is", because we are removing part of the word.
"Its" is used as a possessive like "his" and "her". We wouldn't say "hi's legs", so why would we say "it's legs"? The apostrophe is to show there is something missing, and here it is clearly not being used because it follows the same pattern as "his" and "her" (see the etymology section at the end of the article).
2. In misspellings, like "they're", "there" and "their":
They are = "they're"
There = not here (just add a "t" to the beginning)
Their = belonging to them
Etymology:
English is a Germanic language, despite being over 50% populated with French and Latin words. This is because our oldest words are all Germanic. These are the words which have been in our language since before the Norman conquest in one form or another, and are usually the most important words, like prepositions (of, from, by, etc.), numbers, conjunctions (and, because, etc.), irregular verbs (sing/sang/sung, be/was/were/been, etc.) and names of basic things (seat, house, hat).
Therefore our personal pronouns are most probably going to be from Germanic too.
Let us take "his", "its" and "her" as a basis.
In all Germanic languages at one time or another there were cases (Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, etc.) and some still have them, like German. The "-s" in "his" and "its" is from the Germanic preference for that particular letter at the end of masculine and neuter words to signify there is a possessive involved.
The same applies to the "-er" in feminine possession. There is no mystery to it; no confusion needed - it is just due to the past and the English language's ties to other Germanic constructions!
League of Linguists: Intro
Let's bid a welcome to this brand new blog all about language and its contribution to the world around us. I would like to start by mentioning that this is not just going to be about the rules and regulations of grammar, but also vocabulary, etymology, comparisons to other languages and ways of learning, amongst lots of other stuff. I don't know how frequent there will be posts, but check in now and again to see.
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