TVSquad

Grammar quiz for the day:

"She's actually losing [less or fewer] viewers than Brian Williams."

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It must be Brian's giant head...

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Jim: That one drives me NUTS. I'm glad to see another grammarian in the audience...

Fewer is for countable items; less is for things that aren't countable.

Fewer viewers; less viewership.

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Sorry Porchland & Jim, but you have that backwards.

http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxlessvs.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/writing/style/topic_115.html
http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/miflessvsfewer.shtml

That's why Bob's the writer and you're the critics.

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The line: Sorry Porchland & Jim, but you have that backwards should not of been there.
I was agreeing with you both and gave 3 links as proof.
It was a SNAFU on my word processor.

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You are wrong, Chester. Your links all prove it.

We should know better than to take grammar advice from someone who says "should of."

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Jim, I am confused with your #6 post.

My #5 post was a correction to my #4 post.
I was saying that "Sorry Porchland & Jim, but you have that backwards." should not of been there.

I don't know where I said " should of" as you state in your #6 post.

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Thanks for the clarification, Chester.

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what the hell is wrong with you people?

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Jam, what is wrong with having respect for our language?

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With this kind of commentary, TV squad will have less viewers.

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Bob, those absolute numbers don't mean much if you're not going to tell us what percentage of viewers each anchor lost. If Williams lost 533,000 of 30 million viewers, and Couric lost 287,000 of 10 million viewers, then she's still doing worse than he is.

Which is why they say there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

And that "less viewers" hit my ears like nails on blackboard, too. The less/fewer issue is one of my personal betes noires. Oh, and Chester: you said "should not of been there" instead of "should not have been there," which is what Jim is referring to. An all too common recent consequence of the contraction "should've"....

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Karen: If you want the nitty gritty of the story, click on the link. This is a blog, and we want you to follow the link.

But believe me: Williams' NBC bosses are more worried about him losing over half a million viewers than Couric's CBS bosses are worried about her losing 287,000. But you got "betes noires" into a post. Nice!

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Karen, thanks for clarification.
I should "have" noticed that myself, however you did get Bob's attention!

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...which is what, Bob?

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She’s losing ‘less’ viewers because she didn’t have that many to begin with. With cable news and the Internet providing up to the minute info 24/7, WHY the hell would anybody watch evening news anyway – to keep them company while they read the cue cards?

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