Tony Firshman wrote: > John Taylor wrote: > >> "More" can be applied to both quantity and numbers, so why cannot "less" >> It is regular practise now to talk about me and you, not you and I. >> While I agree with you on the use of fewer and less, it must be >> remembered that English is not a fixed language. >> I am always deeply suspicious of people who make rules for other people. >> Who decides what is right and what is wrong in English? >> > > It is not a question of rules at all. It is an issue of meaning. The > issue of jockeys (previous post) demonstrates that perfectly. > > You are right about 'more' - I reckon there must have been an equivalent > in the past which has died. There is 'much' and 'many' of course. > This also fits into the 'more jockey' concept. Other than the use of > 'more jockeys' there is not way to establish whether we are talking > about the increased weight or numbers of jockeys without adding more > words. That is dulled down language! > > As I said originally, I don't mind language changing at all - it has to, > or die like Latin. What I don't like is the dulling down of meaning. > > There is a school of thought, to which I don't wholly subscribe, which > says that if there is not a way to express something in ones language, > one can not even think it. There was an interesting article in the > Independent a few Saturdays ago about a tribe in South America which had > an incredible simple 'language'. Someone lived with them for a long > while and learnt the language. It had nothing other than the present > tense, and the tribe simply could not understand the concept of past or > future. They also had no numbers, and were unable to grasp the concept > of counting. Even 1+1 was beyond them. > > Tony >
> It does partly explain, however, how different national traits develop. > English is exceptionally rich in that, by taking words from both the romance > and the germanic languages, nuances of meaning can more readily be conveyed > than in many other languages. That has been often been cited as one of the > reasons why the British seem to bat above their weight in inventivenss. It > does not explain everything though; The Americans use near-identical language > to tie themselves in legal knots for their lawyers to untie. Most of the rest > of the world do not even have the language to follow their legal arguments. > Jeremy _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
