Comments on: Congratulations Language Log

By: aa

aa — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 18:30:55 +0000

The less/fewer discussion cited is based on a poor formulation of the rule. The distinction is between discrete and continuous quantities. Continuous quantities (e.g., certain manifestations of time) are often “counted,” so a formulation in terms of counting is only an approximation to the rule. Also, it is natural and sensible to treat large discrete quantities as continuous (though discretion must be continuously exercised). Cf. Dehaene.

By: James

James — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:49:47 +0000

The Southwest article says Language Log posts “are anything but pedagogic.” I wonder if the writer meant “pedantic.”
Or am I just being pedagogic??

By: wmr

wmr — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:28:34 +0000

Do they anywhere address the issue of using “ten times less” instead of “one-tenth as much”?

By: john h

john h — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:56:08 +0000

Language Log is consistently entertaining. For a good laugh, read the one where Geoffrey Pullum brings the prose of Dan Brown into his lab and pulls its wings off.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:54:19 +0000

Thanks for introducing me to Language Log. As a former subeditor, this is the sort of thing I would have loved to have had on hand back in the day. Ah well.

Bonus linguistic goodness: Pullum strikes down the Eskimo-have-dozens-of-words-for-snow myth. (And I liked that myth.)

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000405.html

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:53:18 +0000

Thanks, Bloix

By: Bloix

Bloix — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:40:01 +0000

I’m a longtime fan of Language Log, although it’s annoying that they don’t have comments. Here is the less/fewer post. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html

By: Christopher M

Christopher M — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 23:22:11 +0000

Yeah, Language Log is great. I really wish that the Crooked Timber bloggers would spend more time blogging in the Language Log style, which is to say, writing substantive posts about their areas of academic expertise. I have the (unverified) feeling that there used to be more of this on CT, but these days the posts trend heavily toward general political discussion (with an international bent) and meta-issues about academia per se. Nothing wrong with that, and obviously no one needs to write a blog they don’t want to. It’d just be interesting, that’s all.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 23:18:59 +0000

The less/fewer link just goes to the main page. Is the piece archived somewhere?