There's Nothing Wrong With Saying "10 Items or Less": Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism
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- Опубликовано: 20 июн 2013
- tomscott.com - @tomscott - If you see the phrase "10 items or less" in a supermarket and immediately cringe and complain that it should be "10 items or fewer"... well, you are not going to like this week's video.
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys, clubs them on the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar."
Sauna.
@@BastardSugah No. Not the way English does
@@BastardSugah English is the master of "stealing". 70% of the language is made of spare parts from other languages
@@nichl474 liar
@@vasilicateodor1862 liar? How is that a lie?
I love how he gets all presciptive about being descriptive.
"NO IT'S TEN OR LESS/FEWER ITEMS" - me ten seconds into the video.
No tolerance for intolerance.
@@huntersullivan51 Fight intolerance with intolerance. Hmm...
@@gamhacked Get out filthy lib
Dammit. You beat me to that comment..... by about 3 years.
The British Isles was invaded so many times that it held a grudge and eventually invaded everywhere else.
no replies after three years and 311 likes... sorry if i ruined it
Were
4 years now
@@chrissatriano1800
No.
The british Isles is being treated as a collective, like sand.
Granted, they should have used an s free term, but still.
Were*
When you watch a few of these in a row you get the impression that he doesn't like the French
Daryle Henry Nobody likes the French or their grammar.
Au contraire, I think he's definitely a francophile.
Jackson As Someone Who Is Learning French I Agree
French: they have 70 letters, but they only pronounce 3.
nobody does except for the french
IIRC the last time the French Academy tried de-Anglicising the language, one of the big newspapers asked, rather sarcastically, what they intended to do about 'sandwich'.
Well, but it makes sense to use a foreign word for a foreign item. It makes no sense to invent a pseudo-French word for "taco" or "pizza."
@@profd65 Taconi though.
yes I am aware this comment is a year old
Personally, I'm not at all a fan of the sheer amount of Anglicisms in French, and other languages. Listening to French often feels like listening to English with French grammar. Of course, I can understand to an extent "sandwich", but when people are replacing already existing words in French with English words, that's going a bit far.
For me, when I speak English, I try my best to use British English words as opposed to American words since I believe language is very much a part of culture. Seeing everyday French filled to the brim with Anglicisms saddens me greatly.
Be cool, speak deutch. Can you speak ein bisschen deutsch with me? Be cool, speak deutsch. Maybe then vielleicht verstehe ich sie.
Ich mag keine Anglizismus auf Französisch
All you need know about the "immortals" of the Academie Français is that they took so long to decide the French word for hovercraft that it was obsolete before they finished their deliberations
That’s not all their fault, their hovercraft was so full of eels that they couldn’t investigate it properly
'O'h hello' h'ow a''r'e'' '''you''?'
+Luke Molwitz 11'm gR8, 7)(4n% fUr 42k11ng.
squorsh There is no such thing as "too Homestuck".
+woodfur00 But there is "too Undertale"
E-man - EL Please don't start that.
go home ee cummings youre drunk
I feel like sending this every teacher who ever responded to “can I go to the bathroom” with “I don’t know, can you?”
My teachers would have asked "Why? Do you need a bath?"
If you are asking for permission, then "can I" is completely logical.
@@neuralwarp lmao yes
Can I is perfectly acceptable to be "permission to". There are many of these "wrong" things that most English speakers do.
@@nameistanya LMAO genius
I remember being sad about descriptivism because it meant I couldn't be pedantic about grammar, but it turns out you can be pedantic with the grammar pedants, which is much more fun than tormenting some poor person just trying to get their point across in a relatable vernacular.
I love how australia has contributed so little to english that tom's example of our word in english was "kookaburra"
Stone the flamin' crows!
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK
Well, there's "Foster's" -- apparently it's Australian for beer.
@@Milesco never heard anyone say that, could be a regional thing
@@michaelhird432 : It was an advertising tagline for Foster's lager that was spoken by Paul Hogan in TV commercials (in the U.S., at least) for many years back in the 1980s and '90s.
everybody uses "hash-tag" or "e-mail"(we say "mail"). The Academie is soooo old-school but the video is right for most of the French, it's the autority. For example, everybody in france uses " juste" as " just " but the Academie decided that it was an anglicism and that it's incorrect, even if it's used by 80% of the population....
"Juste" is how it's 'always' been spelt. That wasn't a forced change
@@cdavid2200 hein ? Il n'a jamais parlé de l'orthographe
Didn't just in English come from French though?
@@icameherejusttocomment550 Nope, the Normans, who spoke french, conquered England and said conquest caused English to be massively influenced by french and adopt a lot of it's words, but English is still a Germanic language at it's core. For example, the most common and important words spoken in English are Germanic in origin.
@@SlimeMasterNate They meant to ask "doesn't 'just' in English come from French," not "doesn't English come from French".
The correct way is
"11 items then fuck off"
Olaf Mainframe Sergey Do you mean that I can check out 11 items at the grocery store but then I have to leave? Or do you mean that if I have 11 items, I should not bother checking out?
No, no, no,
Double Price for more than 10 items.
Agreed
One more thing: if you tell me something isn't a word, but you understood what I meant, it's a word.
ahyuhgrii
@@user-sb7br1tk1r what is that
@@warrior_aa it's another form of the perfectly understable word eye-uhgrii
@@user-sb7br1tk1r ok....
And since nobody understood what that means, it's not a word.
I'm too old for irony; in fact, in my advanced years I've attained the opposite of irony: now I'm wrinkly.
hehe that was a good one :)
The creased me up.
The members of the French Academy are referred as "Immortals" not because they don't die (you don't say) or are that important they won't be ever forgot, but because their number is constant. As soon as one dies, he's replaced by a new member. There's always 40 elected members exactly at the Academy, making the institution and its members sort of immortal :)
"There's always 40 elected members..."
There ARE!!!
@@filton0 Hahaha, Prescriptivist!
But seriously though, it's ''there are''
Also thanks for the Info Mr OP
I'd use There're
@@cerebrummaximus3762 : Well it would be "There are always 40 elected members at the Academy", not "They are 40 elected members..."
the word "whovian" is in the oxford dictionary, but not in the part of my computer that does red underlines.
Your computer needs some cultural update, me think...
This video challenged my deeply-held beliefs and now I am offended.
+Alex Stein Go on twitter. You can legitimately report people for having opinions that differ from yours...
+dalmation black And then claim they gave you PTSD when they call you out on your bullshit.
+dalmation black That's a trap for bogus reports.
ijfharvey But it is combined with other options, it's not a check box of it's own
Yep
"That doesn't mean that you should start sprinkling apostrophes all over the place" Y'all'd've would like a word with you.
wtf is that?
You all would have would like a word...
You all had have would like a word..
You all did have would like a word...
@@zoch9797 I was being silly by saying the appostrophe-riddled word y'all'd've itself would like a word with Tom.
Tom Scott probably mean't more like in plural's where you place it by accciden't.
You all would have ?
@@caiawlodarski5339 yes, that is what y'all'd've is short for.
Clearly the best position is descriptoprescriptivism: this is how the language is currently being used, and therefore you're wrong if you don't use it that way.
I'm a fan of prescripto-descriptivism: this is how language ought to be used but meh, we really can't be arsed
Technically most descriptivists do agree it's wrong to deviate from common practice.
Not necessarily wrong, maybe just not right yet, but give it time and everyone else will catch up
In my opinion, only rules that are natural to English are valid. The rules against ending a sentence with a preposition and splitting an infinitive were shoehorned into English to make it more like Latin, so I consider them invalid.
@@EnigmaticLucas not just to make it more like Latin, but done by one playwright to convince people that, because his plays were more like Latin, they were "better."
The one I can't let go of is people typing "then" instead of "than" when making a comparison. I've met people who speak correctly and type it incorrectly!
They're homonyms, what did you expect?
@@mariafe7050 In my accent they sound nothing alike. Affect vs effect on the other hand...
They used to be the same word. We shouldn't really need both.
they sound the same to me with my accent so thats why i do it. sorry
@@machalot They did? Like, a single word was used in both cases, or a single ancestral word split into two very different use cases? Because I can't see a single ideological link between them.
"Courriel" is used a lot more here in Quebec, interestingly.
This is true
On the prairies too. It's always courriel.
As CGP Grey said: "Words are what we make them."
Ah! I love CGP Grey :)
If you are ever trapped for days in a room with nothing else to read and find yourself perusing the front matter of a dictionary, you will find they are quite explicit that the rules of English are not exact, constant, or formal, and that the dictionary (especially if it's a print dictionary) does not includes all words, senses, spellings, or pronunciations. Even the OED says this, and it is certainly true. Pronunciation guides in particular should be taken only as a general guide to the most common usage, since practically every English word has a broad diversity of accepted pronunciations around the world.
Trapped in a room for days on end huh... wonder what that’d be like...
@@soapibubblesthestrange9972 I could use a good dictionary right about now.
This comment aged like wine..
in Canadian French, courrier électronique actually caught on - but in a portmanteau form, courriel. I had no idea that wasn't the original form of the word until now!
now that’s the best way to reject Anglicism: take an English slang term, trace the term back to its roots, translate it literally, and then bastardize it again but in your own language this time
@@sharkwaffle1582So, literally everything that English does. Got it.
French person here : So, even though they are officially called "Immortels", members of the Académie Française are just that, "Membres de l'Académie Française", no one introduces themselves as "Immortel" (that'd be super weird).
And it's right that we don't use "courrier électronique" (old people do...), but to be fair to "mot-dièse", the actual french noun for # has always been "dièse". That's just how we say "hashtag"...
Great to see French person here... So I was given hard time by my professor and by textbooks, how French uses two negatives before and after the verb all the time to mean just one negative, usually the "ne...pas" (but based on the context it can be "ne...rien", "ne...jamais" and so on)...
And few months ago I started watching Netflix and I cannot remember anyone using the "ne". Everyone just goes "C'est pas vrais" and "je vois personne"
so, what is the deal with the "ne" Is it completely ignored in everyday speech?
It's funny that you mention only old people for email because our French classes at the turn of the millennium involved courriel as though it were standard. xD
@@NetAndyCz "Ne [...] pas" is the 'proper' use, that's what you'd use in a description in a book, in a newspaper, in a formal letter, etc. It's not used much in informal speech and I could see it disappearing from the language if it wasn't so prescriptivist.
Dièse and Hash are not the same thing.
# This is a hash, in French it's a "Croisillions"
♯ This is a sharp, in French it's a "dièse"
Those are different things.
has any crazy person ever killed an "Immortel" to see if they can die?
"Fewer" - Stannis
+UnPuntoCircular That line by Stannis made me love him so much when I didn't even like him before that....then the end of season 5 rolled around and I hated him.
+Beans Is he different in the books?
Te pillé
Here in Québec, we don't care too much about l'Académie française, but we do try to slow the anglicisation of our own North American french (quite an interesting linguistic phenomena, by the way), so instead of «courrier électronique» (which no French people from France use, by the way), we use courriel, and it is really used :-)
This clip of Tom Scott saying "I say: Bollocks!" should be savoured for all time
This (largely prescriptivist) high school English teacher LOVES this video. Ultimately, although I point out to my students how Formal Written English is "expected" to be, and what might get them brownie points in a job application letter, college essay, or on some standardized test, I also point out that ours is a Bastard Language That Has Three Daddies (and that number is probably conservative), and that communication and clarity are most important in speech and dialogue. I hope that descriptivism and discussion of origins and usage helps them...while my prescriptivism about writing shows them how to code-switch for those whose judgement will affect them.
i love how matt's laugh is still so distinctive in a crowd
Me still trying to figure what's supposedly wrong with "10 items or less"
Things like water use less because you don't have a million waters; you have a million molecules of water. Things like item use fewer because you don't have a million units of item; you have a million items.
Can you say that bit towards the end ("...but if popular opinion changes, so will they, and so should you.") without being prescriptivist about it?
Lol well played
i'll try, despite not having a very good understanding of this all. "...but if popular opinion changes, so will they, and it would benefit if you did the same"
Yes you can, that's not prescriptivism
Late to the party but I don't think 5 years ago "should" meant the same as "must" instead of "be suggested to"
@@LittleBlacksheep1995 00:16 to 00:29 would suggest otherwise.
I hate prescriptivist thinking because
1) there's an endless amount of irregularity in almost any given natural language and every prescriptivist has their own special opinion about how much should be ignored, codified, and replaced,
2) it fantasizes that the massive decentralized concurrent mutation of natural language can be adequately maintained by a single authority, and
3) just how much profound conceit must you have to assert that, though you've only been around for a fraction of your language's existence and only have the personal mental capacity for a fraction of its working parts, somehow your, and only your, ideas for the _entire domain_ must be correct.
Descriptivists are just as guilty of #1, Tom even says in the video that just because he's a descriptivist he doesn't think you can spell things however you want, which is EXACTLY what he should think if he's just accepting however people communicate.
I'm an English tutor mostly for learners of English, and I feel the best way to describe usage such as "Me and Jack went to the store" is that it is colloquial, or non-standard, and that it is marked as "uneducated" speech. However, "Me went to the store" is an error, since native speakers don't say that (besides Cookie Monster).
That is incorrect. There are native speakers in certain regions that do say that.
The essence of language is communication.
0:50 Ballocks.
A British insult.
If you work as an editor, it's difficult not to be prescriptivist. The obvious main point of editing is to remove errors, but there's also another point of editing: consistency. If you allow one writer to use "fewer" in the same instance where another writer uses "less," (probably not the best example) it can be confusing to the reader, and especially, to other editors and writers.
As far as I know,, if you work as an editor for a company, that company probably has their own "style guide", or uses an established style guide. So it's not just difficult, but impossible. You have no choice but to edit based on the company's standard.
Language changes, sure--but that doesn't mean people have to give up having a say in precisely what changes, or how. If I think the distinction between "less" and "fewer" is worthwhile, why shouldn't I make the case for preserving it? If people listen and agree, fantastic; if they don't, that's fine too. I think there's an important distinction between thinking some things are worth keeping, and getting angry about any little change. :P
I need to weigh fewer.
ajuk1 I need to weigh fewer pounds. ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
+ajuk1 I guess there are people who just want to see the world burn.
+Christoph Michelbach yes there are
Watch The World Burn
Thanks for the update.
I couldn't give fewer of a damn!
I made a thing! There's nothing wrong with saying "10 Items or Less", and here's why. Pedants, prepare to be annoyed.
Actually I think it's the other way around, fewer is wrong, less is correct.
Let me explain:
Try writing that sentence out in maths(since we are talking about the numbers):
Items < 10
This is pronounced "Items less than 10". LESS!
So clearly less is a perfectly good way to describe numbers.
thenorup
Well both less and few come from Old English (laes and feawa). Both being fairly interchangeable - laes being a comparative of little/small and feawa having the meaning of little/small. The development of a difference between them is mostly convention. Really though, there is no grammatical 'need' for few/fewer in modern English.
The only situation I can think of which argues for the continued use of few is in constructions such as: 'the few'. But in any case we use fewer when we are talking about individual items, meanwhile less indicates a lower quantity of something which is viewed as an undifferentiated mass.
'Less' and 'fewer' are not interchangable. 'Fewer' is used with quantifiable objects. 'Less' is a comparitive for measures without quantity. So we would say "10 items or fewer" where 'fewer' is comparing items of quatity, or we could say "10 or less items"; where 'less' is comparing the number 10 and numbers less than 10.
Aud1073cH The word "more" can be used for both countable and uncountable nouns, so why can't "less" be used in the same way?
Aud1073cH
did you even watch the video?
You know, I never noticed the incorrectness of "10 items or less" until you pointed it out. To me, it doesn't sound wrong in that context, but when someone says something like "...less apples...," then it sounds very wrong. I like rules, I think they're fun, or at the very least interesting, but when I was teaching English, I did try to point out that even though the book says you should say X, that Y sounds much more natural, or that in some situations they shouldn't worry too much about which word they use in certain situations. FYI, I believe, in Japan, they still teach using "whom" when even I'll admit that one is on the fast track to word-heaven.
0:41 "I've not got much time" is captioned as "I don't have much time"
2:25 "is descriptive, not prescriptive. And that is really important." is captioned as "is descriptive. And that's really important."
I still have a problem with less vs fewer. It is like much vs many. I have much apples? I have many milk? That doesn't make sense. Same thing with I have fewer apples, I have less milk.
I don't think we should so lightly abandon words in English.
Tobberz language evolves. deal with it.
+purewaterruler Artificial constraints are also part of evolution. There's nothing to deal.
If you know the reason why red Is different from pink, but someone else argues that there is no difference, you consider them color-blind. It means they are missing the finer points of nuance. If you cannot even admit there is pink- you will be lost in a world of mauve, violet, carnation, fuchsia, etc. Arguing that they are 'all red' might be true, in a sense. But it also means that you are the one who is losing an entire palette of variation! SHADES OF MEANING!
@@deborahhanna6640lol but red is just a set wavelength of light....nothing more and nothing less
I like the unintended result of the new RUclips interface lighting up the like button when Tom says "You're not going to like this video"
"As much as a doctor prescribes a suppository"
I take offence.
0:31 - Should have dropped in a big letter "E" made of iron.
0:58 I legitimately thought there was a musquito
Tom Scott has just explicitly told me "go and do one". I'm not sure how I feel about that...
I know.
But what about when they changed the definition of "literally"?
I would argue that was a bad move because it does make communication less clear.
+Andy Brice You can't fight it. Muahahahahahaha
It is literally the worst, and it's going nucular, irregardless of opinion.
+itchykami I wish I could insure that people whom afflict their bad grammar on the rest of us would realize how aggravating it is. It's fortuitous for you I'm not there, or I would of given you a peace of my mind!
I herd you're idea's and their definately good.
(1:40) Well, the French language usage in France, that is.
I like that render of the world map you use, it's so atypical it kind of hurts my brain, but i like it and i can't tell why
2:17 "Language changes regularly and often" I see what you did there
While obviously part of the 'success' (or dissemination) of English is down to colonialism, I wonder if the fact that English doesn't have official prescriptivist institutes/academies saying "this is the way" may have contributed to it beating out other languages and becoming the dominant one?
It probably helps that we actually pronounce our letters, like if i give you a brand new English word and a brand new French word (new to you) and asked you to wing it then an English native speaker would be more likely to know what you were trying to say. We also do lots of weird things that make it harder to learn in terms of grammar rules that are wrong more than not.
But ultimately its because the USA and British Empire were/are so globally dominant for so long that learning English is a great way to advance your business interests, and if everyone learns it for this reason then even 2 people who aren't native English speakers can compromise by using the common language. French is technically the international language but this is a legacy from when France was the dominant power.
I think also the fact that English is a Germanic language helps, since those languages tend to have less excess letters.
"As long as the recipient pays attention to the message and isn't trying to decypher what you're saying, then talk however the hell you want." I squee'd for centuries when you said that because I feel the same way. :D
the sarcasm and sass in the listing of the sources is brilliant
The pretty word "courriel", which is identical in construction to email (electronic mail=courrier électronique) has entered into common use in French-speaking parts of the world, except in France where they still think anglicization of their language is chic.
oh my god someone is doing a fun video on descriptivist and prescriptivist. SO AWESOME!
I literally just saw an animated gif on reddit about this yesterday... Thank you for clarifying the point.
0:21 Scott, if my doctor prescribed a suppository in that way, I'd probably become a descriptivist too!
Oxford commas though... I cringe every time I read a list without them.
RadioactivFly I am the complete opposite. I loathe, detest, despise, dislike and abhor them.
herranton1979
The lack of an oxford comma can really screw up your sentence though:
"I invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin."
"I invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin."
Both sentences intend to say that the strippers were invited in addition to JFK and Stalin. However, the second sentence can easily be read to state that the strippers ARE JFK and Stalin. Also, this:
www.grammarly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/1386725553.jpg.CROP_.promovar-medium2-273x410.jpg
Oxford commas are *_grammatically necessary._*
RadioactivFly But what if I want the strippers to be JFK and Stalin? luilz
They aren't grammatically necessary. A rewording of the sentience would fix the ambiguity and not look stupid.
"I invited JFK, Stalin and the strippers."
herranton1979
But that's the beauty of Oxford commas. You don't need to bend over backwards to make your sentence coherent. And if you want the strippers to be JFK and Stalin, just leave out the Oxford comma!
As for your example, "Stalin and the strippers" sounds like a band or something. It still feels awkward.
+RadioactivFly There is an ambiguity, OH MY GOD, WE HAVE TO ADD THIS COMMA TO REMOVE THIS PARTICULAR AMBIGUITY!!!!
Boo-hoo, stop whining about ambiguities in languages. They're completely normal and shouldn't be fixed by all means. Also, just change the word order and the problem is solved. "I invited JFK, Stalin and the strippers." No need for this conjunction defiling thing.
And also you are creating new ambiguities:
"Please bring Bob, a DJ and a puppy."
"Please bring Bob, a DJ, and a puppy."
The second sentence could mean that Bob is a DJ and not that a DJ is a third seperate entity. So you are creating new problems by removing old ones. Unnecessary.
Oxford commas are *_not_* *_grammatically_* *_necessary_*.
I love that you keep your mistakes in. Hilarious!
Why didn't I see this 6 years ago at the height of my grammar police era eeeeek
One example happening now is the word “software”. Traditionally a mass noun like the example in this video “knowledge”, I frequently see people saying “softwares” or “a software” now. Bugs the hell out of me, but I think it might be here to stay.
Someone making a communication mistake while talking about the importance of clarity in communication is absolutely irony; and quite a funny example too. It's a subversion of the expectation of Tom to be clear while stating the importance of clarity; subversion of expectation is the core of irony. I know how fun it is to spot misuse of irony but Alanis Morissette is probably an easier place to start :P
The obvious issue being when someone uses less instead of fewer in a sentence where the meaning changes, but still makes sense in context. Mostly an issue with written language, of course, you can usually tell when speaking by various paralinguistic elements of the conversation. Good thing we mostly speak face to face these days and don't really write to each other much.
I believe that "a suppository" combined with that face, tone and sound effect was a really obscure way of saying "shove it up"
This is my favorite playlist by you...... and I can't talk about it to anyone cause they find it boring... :(
OMG, as someone who's been changing my views on language rapidly to become descriptivist, I am in love with your videos.
"To which I say, Bollocks"
Loved the suppository sound/action!
having an official academy does make it handy when determining which words are valid while playing scrabble
Doesn't Scrabble have their own dictionary? I have an old one sitting in my house somewhere.
@@Cobalt985 thats the case for english but im not sure if theres a spanish equivalent. also that dictionary does leave out a lot of otherwise perfectly valid words (mainly swears/insults)
1:29 Never in my life have I ever, once, heard the word 'kookaburra'
A specific breed of Australian bird I think.
Really?? Where are you from. I've never even been to australia and I've heard and seen it at least a few times in passing
People need to be fewer bothered by this sort of thing.
The biggest argument in favour of prescriptivism is grammatical: the grammatical rules of English have been worked out to such a degree as to ensure they are as logical, coherent, and consistent as it is possible for a language to be, at least in British English. Vocabulary is negotiable so long as it does not fundamentally alter the understood meaning of a sentence, but once you start messing with the grammatical foundations, well, the whole shoddy edifice is in danger of collapsing. A particular pet peeve is “I could care less” in American English*, where “I couldn’t care less” is clearly the correct usage for reasons of logic and clarity, i.e., if you “could” care less, it means you actually do “care”, at least “a bit”. That abbreviated negation is all-important to the meaning of the sentence. Similarly, the adjective versus adverb difference in “You did good / You did well”, whilst comprehensible, clearly becomes problematic when the example is “How are you?” > “I’m good”, where “good” could describe all manner of things *except* the speaker’s well-being. People who deny that these word categories have specific meaning and are functionally distinct do tend, in my experience, to also be the same people who quite simply haven’t a clue about how to use them correctly. But, on the whole, achieving the functional goal of communicated meaning does supersede some of these other considerations at a certain point, so I tend not to view descriptivism vs prescriptivism as an either/or so much as an and/also: there’s a time and a place for both and any English teacher, whether of native speakers or ESL students really ought to have a sensitivity for when one is required and the other not (and vice versa).
* I’m a bit leery about their spelling conventions, too, because etymology tells us much about the history of a word and its possible meaning(s), even revealing something about changes to that meaning over time. Phonetic spelling is, in my view, tantamount to dumbing down the English language to the point where a considerable portion of its linguistic richness is denuded in favour of a simplified pedagogy.
I didn’t even know that people considered “10 items or less” as wrong
And yet, in one of your Citation Needed episodes, you cringed at the pronunciation of "nuke-you-lar."
It's not a nuculus, it's a nucleus.
***** To those individuals, they pronounce "nuculus" the same way they pronounce "nucular." Either way, the point get across, so why worry about it?
Well, "nuculus" is great for day-to-day usage. When someone in charge of education, like a Biology, Physics, or Chemistry teacher talks about cellular or atomic "nuculei", that's when it really gets to me.
Lutranereis There's a difference between saying something is wrong, and finding it cringey. I'd put aluminum in there too. I know what you mean, Aluminium just sounds nicer.
hairyneil Except that with that example, aluminum is spelled aluminium in Britain. Nucleus and nuclear are spelled the same everywhere (in english).
Watching this right after the French government banned the word 'e-sport'
Acedémie =/= government, and also literally nobody cares.
A lot of prescriptive stuff might be pedantry or snobbery in the face of language change but maybe we all have our pet foibles. unfortunately mine does happen to be less/fewer and number/amount! I shout at the TV when a reporter talks about the “amount of people in the crowd “ . If you count it use number, if you measure it use amount etc.
BRILLIANT !!!!!!
It's hard to be descriptive when you speak french.
I often say : "Hum... interesting" when I hear an "odd" phrase. The person often gets it as a reproach, as I find it actually interesting for the evolution of the language.
And their are some people sho stil say : "This word don't exists, it's not in the dictonnary" even though it's used everyday...
Sad.
I used to get uppity about language until I realized that the point of language is to communicate large ideas with few words. If everyone else uses a word incorrectly, then over time they ARE using it correctly and I am wrong. Spoken language is meant to be quick, light, and easy to say and hear. However, I still hold to the fact that written language should very much be scrutinized. Dictionaries don't tell us which words to use; They let us know which words other people are using.
However, I still hold to the fact that written language should very much be scrutinized.
Really?
I found 4 errors in your paragraph. LOL loser!!!!!
Brian K Damn, I lost? Which are the four errors?
Intoxicatious
Well, there's uh....
And then I saw...
Gotta go bye!
Brian K _"If everyone else uses a word incorrectly, then over time they ARE using it correctly"_
This reminds me a lot of words like "awful" that had a more logical meaning back in the old days. For example, awful meant inspiring wonder, fantastic meant existing only in imagination, artificial used to mean artfully/skillfully constructed, and manufactured (from manufactus, a Latin compound of the words manus and facio - hand and make) originally meant made by hand.
Of course no one (or rather a negligible minority) would want to change those words back now, just so they can better conform with their etymological relatives.
Intoxicatious Written language is a tool just like spoken language. It should be scrutinized only as little or as much as necessary to MAKE IT USABLE.
NOT a scholar's pet project.
Having watched this video to the end, I feel compelled to strongly disagree.
It's... bizarre to see Tom be this emotive. I'm so used to his style from more recent videos that this really caught me off guard.
My favourite way of describing the English language is as "the Frankenstein's Monster of languages" - but just to point out that I think anybody who uses just the proper noun "Frankenstein" to refer to the monster is just plain wrong. xP
"...clearry. ... IRONYYYYYYY!"
2:33 "and so should you"
Is that... prescriptivism I smell?
Not really, it's a suggestion.
Must =/ should
@@kekow176 For me, it is. Also that was prescriptist.
@@unstoppableboy9859 "Should" and "must" almost never carry the same meanings. Sure, they are similar sometimes but not the same. cf. "You should do that" and "You must do that"
*There's probably a page about this in CGEL by H&P somewhere, but I can't be bothered.
I would say the reason for using "fewer" instead of "less" when the subject is a plural is so that the meaning is clearer? If you are unfamiliar with English and somebody says "I have less fish" then they will assume you have eaten some of your fish and chips. If instead you say "fewer fish" it will be assumed that of your fish collection, one or two have died.
Yes there is. Grammar reflects logic. "Less" means you haven't time to count how many less than 10 there are. "Fewer" than 10 means you've had a bit of a look at your quantity. Talking about "less" people in "smaller amounts" treats people like sugar, sand, or dust. "Fewer" than a certain number makes sense in this case, and in many cases.
You went a bit nucular there
*Prepares shield*
I'm on both sides of this argument. I wrote in a comment on another video by this guy that I had a teacher my senior year of high school who taught us grammar and made us true believers because he knew all the reasons for the grammatical rules; i.e. what possible misinterpretation correct usage avoids; there were a few even then that I felt were unnecessary, and still do, such as avoiding "this is due to that," even though the phrase in question used to mean "is owed to." As a tech writer later on I had to know thoroughly the things I learned from that teacher. But I've no use for the pedants who, in that career, told me I must never start a sentence with a conjunction. Bollocks! [And note, in sentence preceding last one {a nonsentence according to some as it has no verb}, my misuse of a prepositional phrase modifying the wrong pronoun. I'll bet everyone knew what I meant. Still, as somewhat of a purist, I would correct {yes, correct!} it thus: "... who, when I was in that career, told me ...."] And on the other side I am starting to let go of the distinction between "who" and "whom"--though in formal writing I'll continue to use "whom" for the objective case--because I can detect no ambiguity of meaning in either oral or written English when "who" is used where we need the objective case; apparently, as English has continued to evolve, more and more the functions and meanings of words become clear enough in whatever context unavoidably accompanies "who[m]." But some mistakes I see truly are, because they open the door to possible confusion even if they don't invariably do so. Lately I see way too many instances of using " 's " instead of just "s" to make a plural. And misplacing the modifier "only"--putting it always at the start of a series of noun[-phrases] that it might be meant to modify, instead of as close as possible to the one actually meant--annoys me because often I have to work out, taking into account a whole lot of context, what the noun is that the writer intended "only" to modify. [Again, note my rude-crude usage "a whole lot of"--used, as I just did, in a way far removed from the origin of the phrase--that most of us, I daresay, rarely notice, because it works: no misunderstanding.] One final bugbear: almost no one knows how to use hyphens, especially to link together two or more nouns in a phrase of 3 or more: in which the first two-or-more function as an adjective modifying the final noun in the string. Used to run into this as a tech writer in the computer biz--4, 5, 6, even 7 nouns in a row, no hyphens, meaning--what? Maybe the software engineer knew; I could sometimes work it out, often had to ask. What's worse then tech-speak? Well, maybe lawyer-speak. Rules still have a place. I think I agree with 1 or 2 commenters who said we need them because our language is changing too fast. Frankly, so is almost everything else. It's a bit insane.
"That's not what the dictionary says!", "Brian, there you are!"
“Stannis Baratheon wants to know your location”
The previous video told me to subscribe to be notified when this one is released
"you can't have 32 knowledges" i can and i will
So to the important question: Is anime an artstyle or just cartoons from Japan?
+XxjazzperxX Neither. Animes are weird cartoons from Japan which are disputed to be cartoons by the people who like them.
+XxjazzperxX From Japan. When you have things like Kaiba, Dragonball, and Panty & Stocking all being called 'anime' in English, the word is clearly used to represent animated shows from Japan. This becomes especially clear when you realise that the Avatar cartoon series (American) is not called anime, and neither are Chinese animated series, which sometimes are stealing animation from anime.
However, in this case 'from Japan' isn't even that clear. To make the conundrum especially weird, a lot of anime are actually animated in Korea - a funny case when the Avatar series was as well. I would define from Japan as 'in Japanese, broadcast in Japan'. The way anime is used in English is up to how English speakers are using it, and there's a large amount of backlash whenever someone suggests that Avatar the Last Airbender is anime.
+Jazzpah Anime is Japanese cartoons. RWBY is not an anime, it is in the style of an anime.
Unfortunately, it's both. With the difference hopefully being implied through context. This happened before with the word cartoon, itself. Strictly speaking, cartooning means to draw with lines(primarily contours). It's a technique that was named in the Renaissance. Nowadays many "cartoons" don't even have lines, this would be an utterly unrecognizable usage to a Renaissance artist.
When early animators were working, they didn't all cartoon. But cartooning was generally used because of efficiency. Cartooning was previously mostly used in editorial cartoons, which had similar demands of speed and efficiency. But it was only through its applied usage in editorials and animation that it became synonymous with an idea of style. Originally, it was just a technique.
As an animator, this is frustrating, since it makes some conversations ambiguous and can cause confusion. But such is life!
Literally its just cartoons.
Dammit, Tom, the enormity of the situation cannot be understated. Look it up.
Agreed. Language is a tool; it is a mean and not an end. As long as the receiver is correctly understanding what is being communicated, language is doing its job. Besides, pedants of old would be apalled at what current pedants consider to be 'proper' language, so it really is a fruitless discussion.
after watching this video i decided i couldnt care fewer
I don't clearly remember if its was my mom, dad or some other party I had this conversation with. But I had it with someone.
Them: Just because a lot of other people do it, doesn't make it right.
Me: Yes it does. That's the whole point of linguistics.
I didn't carry the day. I'm not very persuasive.
My philosophy is that language is a tool of the speakers, and it will change at their colective will. That is to say, the way we speak should not be defined by a dictionary, but the other way around, because language is constantly evolving and changing with the rest of the world. If there comes a point where a new word is used by most people in a nation that shares a language, and everyone gets it, then the dictionary should accomodate that word, for it is now part of the language.
I am descriptive when it comes to spoken language, but prescriptive when it comes to written language.
I'd generally agree re with Tom here but I get annoyed by the misuse of "disinterested" and "begs the question" because the older (sorry can't resist it!) correct usages were useful and difficult to replace.
1) Indifferent
2) Circular reasoning
That good enough for you?
I didnt know there was more than one usage of either of those?