(no subject)
Researching yet another tiresome argument with some grammar maven who objected to less being used to mean fewer, I was interested (though not surprised) to see that this common “mistake” has a pedigree going all the way back to Old English. According to the OED, it “originates from the OE. construction of lǽs adv. (quasi-n.) with a partitive genitive”. The earliest citation they have is from Ælfred's translation of Boethius:
Swa mid læs worda swa mid ma, swæþer we hit gereccan magon
...which means "either with less words or with more, however we might explain it", or more loosely perhaps, "We can say it equally well in a few words or in many." It takes a while, or an effort, for the residual adverbialness of læs to sink in here.
I had seen that construction used in OE before (not that I would have thought to call it "partitive"), but I hadn't realised it was the direct ancestor of people nowadays saying "there are less cars if you go left at the lights" and so forth.
These are the occasions where the linguist in me goes "ooh!", and the journalist in me goes "aargh!". The journo part of me usually loses, thank Christ - otherwise I'd be one of those twats who writes in to Radio 4 complaining about all the dangling participles in The Archers.
Swa mid læs worda swa mid ma, swæþer we hit gereccan magon
...which means "either with less words or with more, however we might explain it", or more loosely perhaps, "We can say it equally well in a few words or in many." It takes a while, or an effort, for the residual adverbialness of læs to sink in here.
I had seen that construction used in OE before (not that I would have thought to call it "partitive"), but I hadn't realised it was the direct ancestor of people nowadays saying "there are less cars if you go left at the lights" and so forth.
These are the occasions where the linguist in me goes "ooh!", and the journalist in me goes "aargh!". The journo part of me usually loses, thank Christ - otherwise I'd be one of those twats who writes in to Radio 4 complaining about all the dangling participles in The Archers.