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Having discovered shortly before Opening Day that MLB.com would allow us to watch one free baseball game per day via Roku, my husband and I have watched far too much baseball over the last couple of weeks. As we’ve done so, I’ve noticed that most baseball announcers seem unfamiliar with the word “fewer”. Thus we hear that “Team A has less hits than any other in the majors” and that “Pitcher B has less saves than he did at this time last year”.
Every time the word “less” was used in such contexts, I would say, very quietly, “fewer”. Finally my husband informed me that he was afraid I was fighting a losing battle. I conceded that I was but vowed to fight on even against such overwhelming odds. This resulted in (a) my husband nicknaming me “Donna Quixote” and (b) my looking up the rules for using “fewer” and “less”.
I found the Wikipedia article on this subject most distressing. It begins reasonably enough by saying:
According to prescriptive grammar, "fewer" should be used (instead of "less") with nouns for countable objects and concepts (discretely quantifiable nouns or count nouns). According to this rule, "less" should only be used with a grammatically singular noun (including mass nouns).
However, the article immediately goes on to discount this view by referring to “descriptive grammarians”, “common usage of today and the past”, and “a personal preference expressed by a grammarian in 1770.” The real dagger to my heart though is this:
An extreme application of the prescriptivist rule can be seen in the examples "there is less flour in this canister" and "there are fewer cups (grains, pounds, bags, etc.) of flour in this canister", which are based on the reasoning that flour is uncountable whereas the unit used to measure the flour (cup etc.) is countable. Nevertheless, even most prescriptivists accept the most common usage "there are less cups of flour in this canister" and prescribe the rule addition that "less" should be used with units of measurement (other examples: "less than 10 pounds/dollars"). Prescriptivists would however consider only "fewer cups of coffee" to be correct in a sentence such as "there are fewer cups of coffee on the table now", where the cups are countable separate objects, although most people now and in the past use "less" even in such cases.
Really? If so, then apparently I am an “extreme” prescriptivist rather than merely one of “most prescriptivists” because I consider “less cups” just plain wrong whether I’m talking about cups of flour or cups of coffee.
The article did catch me out on another example in the above paragraph - “less than 10 pounds/dollars” - as well as on this:
In addition, "less" is recommended in front of counting nouns that denote distance, amount, or time. For example, "we go on holiday in fewer than four weeks" and "he can run the 100m in fewer than ten seconds" are not advised.
I would say “I have less than ten dollars”, “I go on vacation in less than four weeks”, and “I can run the 100 meter in less than 2 hours”. I can argue that in these instances the apparent count nouns (dollars, weeks, hours) are stand-ins for (I think) mass nouns (money and time) and thus I could rewrite these sentences as:
I have less money than ten dollars.
I go on vacation is less time than four weeks.
I can run the 100 meter dash in less time than two hours.
I would never say them quite that way, of course, but I would say:
How much money do I have? Less than ten dollars.
How long [a time] before I go on vacation? Less than four weeks.
What is my time for the 100 meter dash? Less than two hours.
As I say, I can argue this and I think there’s some validity to that argument but I may just be reverse engineering what sounds right to me so it fits with my extreme prescriptivism. After all, if someone asked, “How many weeks until you go on vacation?” I’m not entirely sure I’d say “Fewer than four” rather than “Less than four” - at least not every time.
All that said, however, saves and run are very definitely countable, as are most other measurements in baseball; it’s hard to derive statistics from non-countable actions, events, and occurences. Baseball can have fewer of lots of things: hits, runs, errors, saves, innings pitched, stolen bases, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, runs scored, runs scored against, at bats, bases on balls, grand slams, strike outs (looking and swinging), foul balls, runners in scoring position, caught stealing (or perhaps “caughts stealing” or “caught stealings”), balks, blown saves, earned runs, double plays, double plays induced, double plays hit into, day games, night games, away games, home games, free agents, intentional bases on balls, inherited runners, losses, wins, games ahead, games behind, tickets sold, and fans in attendance. Less, not so much.
*****
Standard disclaimer for a post dealing with grammar: Somewhere in this post there is almost certainly at least one egregious grammar error. Also, I know I use commas oddly especially in relation to quotation marks. Consider it part of my ineffable charm.
I really like Major League Baseball’s Mother’s Day celebration. It’s nice that they honor mothers and even nicer that they raise money for and awareness of breast cancer. Plus it’s sweet seeing all those tough athletes with pink bats, pink ribbons, pink wristbands, pink necklaces (!), even a few pink shoes. (Yes, I know they call them “spikes” but really - pink spikes? I don’t think so.)
What made my day today though was one of the WGN announcers for the Cubs-Milwaukee game explaining a batter's difficulties by saying he was trying to “lift and separate”.
I love baseball.
Updated: The Jackals won. Bases loaded, bottom of the 13th, a wild pitch let in a run. Final score: Sussex Skyhawks 6, New Jersey Jackals 7.
I've changed the post title from "DNC Tuesday" to "2008 DNC Tuesday" just in case I want to write about the 2012 DNC. I've also added a comma between "getting" and "had" in the sentence that begins "I imagine her long narrative". And I've fixed my mental typo by changing "self-composed" to "self-possessed" in the antepenultimate sentence.
Finally, I thought Hillary Clinton's orange pantsuit looked fine.
I was at a New Jersey Jackals baseball game (still tied when I left after 11 innings) last night, so I taped the CSPAN coverage of the Democratic National Convention from about 6:15pm EDT on. (I did tape Monday’s coverage but haven’t yet watched any of it. I plan to watch Michelle Obama’s speech at least.)
I watched the Tuesday night coverage this morning by giving each speaker roughly 60 seconds to catch my attention before fast forwarding to the next. Kathleen Sebelius held me for about 2 minutes but after that I didn’t find anything new in her message and wasn’t swept up by her rhetoric.
The speaker who did hold me for all of his speech was Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts. His personal story was compelling, he gave it an “only in America” nod, and he tied it into what we could hope for from the Democrats and an Obama Presidency. Furthermore, his delivery was excellent.
Montana’s Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer followed Patrick. I found him difficult to watch - too fidgety on stage - but I made it through his description of how he selected a Republican as his Lieutenant Governor because he believed he could achieve more working with the Republicans than against them. After listening to what they’d accomplished during his time as governor - lowered taxes, more energy production, more money for schools - I was wondering if I could just vote for him for President.
As for Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is impossible for me to imagine any way in which she could have done a better job convincing her supporters to vote for Barack Obama. I imagine her long narrative of what she believed in, why she ran, and the people she met along the way who deserved better than they were getting, had all her supporters on the verge of storming the stage to demand she be the nominee (and had the Obama people biting their nails). Then she asked her supporters: were you in this campaign for me or were you in this campaign for the people who need us, for the ideals we both believe in? If it was for the people and the ideals, then you have to vote for Barack Obama. Brilliant and unanswerable.
She also did an excellent job - rhetorically and substantively - outlining why McCain was unacceptable. Her reference to Michelle Obama as a great first lady was beyond classy and her praise of Joe Biden and his wife was fabulous. Her invocation of the long, long struggle of the suffragettes was perfect and her working back around to the story of Harriet Tubman urging those fleeing to freedom to never give up was inspired. This part of her speech was classic get out the vote, fire up the troops tub-thumping oratory.
Most of all, I liked her reference to the fact that we Democrats know how to do this because look how well we did with President Clinton and the Democrats. That was very powerful stuff given the feeling in some quarters that the Clinton Presidency hadn’t been given its due by the Obama campaign. And her looking forward to we Democrats doing just as well under President Obama and the Democrats was a generous gift.
I cried, Bill cried, Michelle clapped, Biden was the most enthusiastic applauder in the hall. This speech was a stem-winder in the original sense of being first-rate, powerful, persuasive, effective, and impassioned. All in all, as I said, I can’t imagine how she - or anyone - could have done a better job.
Will it work to convince her supporters to back Obama? I think it will. I was not a Clinton supporter and I’ve never understood why anyone would vote for Obama but even I found myself thinking that maybe he wouldn’t be such a bad choice after all. Pretty powerful stuff.
On a less political note, I’m simply going to have to admit that I don’t understand the Clintons’ marriage. It was crystal clear during the speech that Bill was unbelievably proud of Hillary and at one point when the cameras focused on him he was whispering, “I love you” over and over again. It’s not a marriage that would work for me but it works for them. And based on what I’ve seen of Chelsea Clinton, they’ve managed to raise quite an intelligent, self-composed daughter. They must be doing something right.
I can’t wait for Bill’s speech tomorrow.
I was so very saddened to hear of Bobby Murcer's death. I didn't start following the Yankees until after his playing days but I adored him as a broadcaster. He always seemed to think the best of everyone, players and fellow broadcasters alike. He was wonderfully steady and that, along with his "aw, shucks, who me" approach to static in the booth made him invaluable. His sense of humor always delighted me and his drawl made for wonderful listening. I always figured he'd be back next year, after he rested up a little and got back on his feet. It's hard to believe he won't be doing another game.
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