In last week’s issue on page 5, Tim Bousquet quoted Mayor Savage as saying: “We can be involved in doing our jobs if there’s less council meetings.” English is a beautiful language but spoken in this manner, it takes on a crude edge. The verb to be needs to agree with the subject which is in this case in the predicate (I think it’s called a nominative; correct me if I’m wrong) “meetings” (plural) so it would need to use the plural form of the verb “are;” secondly “less” is only used with uncountable nouns like “sugar” “tea” “gravel.” In this case the noun “meetings” is countable so the correct word is “fewer” (Sadly a word we are seeing “less” of. (Just to confuse matters but in this case it modifies the clausal verb “are seeing”) so the sentence would correctly read: “We can be involved in doing our jobs if there are fewer council meetings.” Doesn’t that sound better to the ears? Call me picky but it bodes poorly in regard to his paying attention and respecting what was surely taught him in school, or was he quoted incorrectly? —English Language Lover
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2012.
Perhaps it’s his attempt to connect with the people who think “axe” is a verbal request and “cotillion” is a really, really, really big number.
amen. There’s/there are, and fewer/less make my head explode. For some reason, whenever they are incorrectly used, it sounds like the person is shouting them because it stands out so much! My grammar is far from perfect and I don’t police other people, but these errors sound terrible!
who the hell really cares o.p., savage is just another pig at the trough. he has already proven this to be true, by giving himself and cronies a nice raise. and just a few days after getting elected yet.
go away OP. Coming to an internet forum to complain about grammar and shit is pointless, don’t you have something productive to do or worry about slang>real english
After having a mayor who spoke like he had a mouthful of crib pegs, Savage is a big fucking improvement.
i like cribbage
Jebus…
where’s no_fool?
dat bitch wud make your brains explode….
lol zed
no point in having a politician who speaks clearly or well. just gives a false impression of competence.
The only thing worse than bad English are those that complain about bad English.
hey, tf, you have that poor little minkey on your picture.
i feel the need for a pink panther marathon
All BA’d up and no place to go.
http://bit.ly/UM8apa
U can tk txt and IM 4 dat
(I don’t text, so I am guessing at what might be the text message abbreviations).
In any case, the emergence of texting, I think, has corroded the English language to what we hear and write/read today (notice I did not write “here” or “right” as I’ve noticed elsewhere!).
I’m surprised people have nothing better to do… fail all the engrish you want…. just don’t waste our money and be crooked.
I hate people who don’t know how to use apostrophe’s 😉
(side note: if you are one of those people, the correct spelling is “apostrophes”…)
You are incorrect op.
English is NOT a beautiful language.
crayons, you are so write, martian is the most beautufull.
Sounds like he needs a visit from the Ghostfucker!
Fuk me by’s …Spellin Nazi’s An f’n Grammer Nazi’s !
It enuff ta make me wanna learn Mexican ! !
Halifax gets what it deserves … again. This is what happens when the City’s collective head remains stuck up its bum.
Too many council meetings, huh? No more worries about ‘in camera’ meetings and openness of government.
The elected representatives of HRM continue as an example to the country of ‘what not to do’. At least Toronto tries to get rid of its idiots on council.