this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Ignoring the fact that OP was asking about non-English mistakes: the less/fewer distinction isn't something that grew naturally. Some people writing down their opinions on grammar decided that the words indicate countable versus uncountable nouns, but that distinction wasn't present in the language many people actually spoke. The first time someone made the distinction was in a comment about the author's linguistical style preference rather than as a rule.
The entire thing is an invented construct taught in schools that doesn't reflect how people use the language. Linguistic prescriptivism is ridiculous and grammar (and preferably spelling, though that ship has sailed for English) should reflect how people use the language rather than be limited by the opinions and rules of the people writing the dictionaries and text books.
I've never heard "I need at fewest three eggs" despite its supposed grammatical correctness. It's been centuries and still we try to hammer the less/fewer distinction into kids, it's time to give up and accept either already.
Thank you! I often feel the urge to use "less" before a countable noun despite knowing that I'm supposed to use "fewer." Good to know that it isn't just me.
I see your point, but my personal view is that I like order. I don't even care too much about specific kind of order. Chaotic-looking things can also be in-order (my favourite example is Vietnamese traffic).
I would argue
at leastis not equal tothe least. It's a different word, despite being spelt the same. There are a few examples like that which, unfortunately, escape me at the moment.Also, don't mean any offence, but text is difficult to relay that - I've literally loled at you mispelling
grammarin the sentence talking about grammar and spelling :DAt least and the least both use the same "least". The context of their use mag be different, but if we're sticking to strict grammar as written down by the booke, they're both superlatives of "little". The usage of less and least changed a bit when English dropped a bunch of grammatical cases over the years ("less of words" became "less words" because of this) but the word hasn't changed much other than that the spelling got reformed a few hundred years ago to match pronunciation more closely.
I swear to god autocorrect is trying its bery hardest to turn grammar into grammer and I have no idea why. I've explicitly told it not to suggest grammer again but it keeps trying to incorrectly correct me. I blame AI.
I'm actually with you - building out our plural system would be a satisfying direction for English to go. Unfortunately, I don't see "at fewest" catching on. Maybe I'll try it out a few.
If you look at non-standard dialects of English, it seems like the most natural thing is for the aspect system to grow out as the language evolves further (and unfortunately lose some of it's symmetries).