I shared this post a few weeks back which included a grammatical error. By the time I shared, the comments had already turned into a dogpile of teacher's pets climbing over each other to point out the mistake or congratulate themselves on having caught it. But here's the thing:
Less vs Fewer is the pedantry of those who have gained the first inkling—no more—of an appreciation for the English language. They wield it gleefully like a yardstick across the knuckles of their peers. These are people who never properly mourned the death of their master, and are thus condemned to a cycle of perpetually unattainable gratification of the master in their head.
What's more, they also miss an important evolution of language that is revealing in its implicit critique. Less vs Fewer reflects not merely the degradation of instruction or of the culture of literacy, but is inextricably linked to the massification of economy, culture, bodies, and therefore language. One may speak of "less cops" because cops are in an important sense not individuated. They are a mass, and treating them as such is an essential part of understanding what they are, and how they operate symbolically. It is also necessary to understanding them as individuals.
Yes, it is incorrect in a sense (and I'm hardly one to point the finger for agonizing over grammatical minutiae). But to grasp what's happening linguistically it's necessary to look further than the fact that an error has been committed, to look instead into how and why language has been detourned in this way, and what latent meaning its misuse might reveal.
#linguistics #grammar #cops
https://todon.eu/@RadicalGraffiti/114323137751219167