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Oh look, a prescriptivist.
I get it; I used to insist on grammar “rules” too because I enjoy learning them, but studying linguistics opened my eyes to how snobbish the idea of a “correct” way of speaking a language is. Language evolves though “breaking rules”. https://twitter.com/drgitlin/status/1304470103732486144
I get it; I used to insist on grammar “rules” too because I enjoy learning them, but studying linguistics opened my eyes to how snobbish the idea of a “correct” way of speaking a language is. Language evolves though “breaking rules”. https://twitter.com/drgitlin/status/1304470103732486144
People adapt language to their needs, and if enough people ignore a “rule” because it doesn’t make sense to them, the rules are gonna change eventually. It has always been that way; otherwise you’d still be speaking like folks in Beowulf.
This phenomenon is the reason English speakers don’t have to learn a grammatical gender for every noun in their language anymore, and barely have to do any declining of nouns and adjectives nowadays. I believe most people would consider that easier and more convenient.
Additionally, English has spread all over the world as a first or official language, and it doesn’t only belong to speakers of white, Western, and upper class dialects. Language evolves differently in different places and communities. No variety of English is 100% universal.
Finally, the prime purpose of language is communicating. If you get your message across your use of language was successful. I can’t imagine that not distinguishing between “less” and “fewer” would make any sentence suddenly unintelligible.
