Re: Free Lisp download

On 2009-07-30, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-07-29 23:44:19 -0400, Bill McCleary
<mccleary.b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

Then it is interesting that the use of "fewer" with a mass noun is not
comparably common. In fact, the actual usage looks like this:

mass count

less XXXX XXXX

fewer XXXX

with only one of the four possibilities rarely, if ever, occurring and
the other three being frequent.

Perhaps one is somehow more of an error than the other?

I do not find it particularly interesting. Those ignorant of the mass
noun v. count noun distinction use "less" with both, and never use
"fewer" at all. They cannot mistakenly use a word they never speak.

Like some other correspondents to this thread you're falling into the
trap of thinking that grammatical correctness is determined by
popularity. Language, like other aspects of human culture, admits of
varying levels of mastery, and it is quite possible for a majority of
speakers to be lacking such mastery.

Umm, no. Language is a natural phenomenon. What you observe is what it is.
The majority of speakers can't be wrong, by definition.

The sad truth is that many native
speakers of English, possibly a majority, do not properly understand
the grammar of their own native language.

Nobody understands the grammar of his native language (if indeed there
is such a thing). Grammars are only theoretical models, with varying
degrees of coverage of the phenomena.

What proportion of Americans
who are native speakers of English even know what the subjunctive is,
let alone when and how to use it?

Five-year-old English-speaking children can use a subjunctive, without
knowing what it is.
.

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