A Subtle Difference
Okay, today is a test. What’s the difference between these two words?
You fill ’em in:
- proficient:
- efficient:
Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed
Good Ol’ Linguistic Change
English is a living language, which neans that things can change. I could give so many examples that the subject of linguistic change could dominate this website. I’ll mention just one: the writing medium has an effect. We’ve probably all done this sort of thing on our grocery lists for years. This medium is similar:
Yes, texting lends itself strongly to letter-saving phonetic abbreviations. You could probably list a dozen of these, right?
Remember “tosspot” from a couple posts ago? The last word in this strip is one.
I Call it “Flow”
—She calls it being “in the zone.” I guess that’s okay.
When you write, it’s easy to lose track of time, and the outside world fades away so you’re not aware of anything except what you’re writing. That’s flow (or being in the zone). It’s a pretty good state to be in.
Fewer or Less?
This is one of my hobby horses, and maybe we’ll lose this battle, but still, I didn’t expect to find this mistake made by these folks, Axios. Does it jump out at you when you read this sentence?
Why it matters: Less than 4 in 10 Americans hold a bachelor’s degree — but this group dominates America’s decision-making class.
ai.plus@axios.com for October 5, 2023
Yes! Use “fewer” when you’re counting something, and “less” when you’re measuring, when you can have fractions. I don’t think they expect 3.9 Americans.
Harrumpf.
Use the search box on the right to find more examples of when and when not to use fewer or less.
A Typographic Technicality
Besides the bad math, do you see the typographic error?
That’s an x between the 8 and the 3, not a times sign. For more professional looking writing, use a times sign when you show multiplication. To get one, hold sown the Alt key while you type 0215 on the numeric keypad. Then you get this: × and not this: x. See the difference?
