Mathematicians know best

Far be it for me to be against the pedantic. All hail the pedants; force the illiterati to feel foolish for their errors.

Or, as is more often the case, allow the illiterati to mock the pedantic for being anal and subsequently increase hatred on both sides of the grammar divide.

However much I agree with the pedant army, there is one commonly quoted error that irks me.

The pedants state that the use of "less than" is frequently incorrect and should be "fewer than". The usual example is at a fast checkout queue which has signage indicating "20 items or less", causing the hackles to rise in those who argue the following:

Less is used for a non-discrete quantity, for example: less milk. You can reduce the amount of milk by any amount, a drop, a cup, a drizzle, however much you like. If talking about a discrete quantity, such as bottles of milk, which can only be reduced in whole numbers, you should say "fewer than 7 bottles".

And so the mathematical part of my brain comes into action.
I instinctively want to correct that 7 to x, because in that sentence any number at all could fit. 7 is a number plucked from nowhere and which doesn't really belong there.

And so the sentence would read "fewer than x bottles of milk". Better, they say.

Except "fewer than" is not a mathematical term. In mathematics, you would write it as "less than x bottles of milk", because "less than" IS a mathematical term. Of course in maths, you would have discarded most of the words and would simply be dealing with < x, but that is another matter.

In the supermarket queue scenario, the number of items must be less than or equal to 20. Or to be more concise: 20 or less.
A correct mathematical term, and therefore appropriate to me.

Not annoyed

Law of shopping decrees that when you have money to spend you can't find what you want. Very annoying.

Anti annoyance #1 today was the imagining of a needed pair of trousers and Next - the shop for which I have gift vouchers to spend - having the exact trousers imagined, even when tried on. Purchase made, and the trousers didn't go horrid when in the harsh real light of home.

Additional anti annoyance (#1b) was the breakage of sunglasses en route to Next and replacements being there for £6 - double anti annoyance of getting what was needed AND the stocking of summer goods in January being incredibly useful. (Normal annoyance that it is hard to purchase what you need when you actually need it).

Being incredibly pedantic means being mildly psychotic when words are pronounced wrongly. The level of psychosis increases proportionally with the importance of the speaker: people in shops erring as such induce a feeling of superiority; people reading the news making the same error induce a murderous rage.

Pet hate is the pronunciation of the word "controversy". It is marginally reassuring that there are those who consider the wrong pronunciation to be correct and so are offended by the way I say it. But it still rankles something rotten when someone important says it the Wrong Way.

So, watching Newswipe with Charlie Brooker - who is very, very important - a day after it was on, as is the way, there was an enormous anti annoyance when he said "controversy" approximately 18 times in a minute. Correctly.

Naturally had he used the Wrong Way, I would have turned off the television and never allowed him to darken my consciousness again.

Or I might have been annoyed and muttered about it and done precisely nothing except worshipped him a little less. Something.

So. I find myself not annoyed and that's just not much fun. Here's hoping tomorrow consists of the usual irritating annoyances.

Sense of humour failure

Today I received "9 Things I Hate About Everyone" by email. I'm in a pedantic mood, so I'm going to answer on behalf of Everyone:

• People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

I have only ever witnessed this between people who don't speak the same language. It helps to use visual clues. Last time this happened to me was in France and I helpfully showed him my watch. Which is ok, except I supposedly speak French. Anyway.

• People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the T..V.. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually.

Except the remote does things that you can't do without it. Which is quite probably the reason you want it. And it might be in the bin/dog/fridge, you need to check.

• When people say 'Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too'. Damn right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

It's a saying. If you eat it, you don't have it any more. Not complicated.

• When people say 'it's always the last place you look'. Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? Gonna Kick their asses!

This is a particular bugbear. Obviously you don't keep looking, but I take it to mean that it's in the last place you'd think of, ie you look everywhere else first, thus making the place it is, the last place. Maybe it only works if you physically make a list, then you could say "it was in the penultimate place I looked". I might start saying that just to make a point.

• When people say while watching a film 'did you see that?'. No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.

That's a way of saying "I want to comment on that" not a literal question.

• People who ask 'Can I ask you a question?'.... Didn't really give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

Well, that's an innocuous question that can be answered yes or no. The question still to be posed is likely to be awkward.

• When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.

You can't get a new version?

• When people say 'life is short'. What the hell?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

It's a saying again. Means you have to bear in mind it's finite.

• When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks 'Has the bus come yet?'. If the bus came would I be standing here, dumbass?

All very well, but occasionally bus stops have more than one bus that stops there. The person may have just missed the bus themselves. Valid question.

• 
  

So... Having got that out of the way, I feel compelled to compile.

8 things I hate about everyone, because I can only think of 8, and 9 is an arbitrary number anyway:

• People who talk/eat/laugh at the wrong bits/clap at any bit when watching a film/act/gig.
• People who have the beeps turned on and who text incessantly on the train. The beeps do nothing, there's a massive hint that you've pressed a button when a character appears on screen.
• People who complain about a programme they haven't watched because they thought it sounded offensive.
• When people go on about the "last place you look" thing
• People who think that using English properly is anal and uptight. There/their/they're: not difficult. Its/it's: not difficult. Have/of: nothing like each other.
• People that sit next to you on the train when there's plenty of empty seats.
• The way virtually everyone pronounces "controversy". It's con-trov-ersy. Not contro-versy. Someone that writes about words and I normally worship (which applies to just about everyone that cares about words and says so) has the same bugbear the other way round. I can't remember who it is, I think it might be John Humphreys.
• People who criticise you for doing something differently to the way they imagine they'd do it, despite having never attempting it in their life.