You struck an empathetic cord because I have read your signal above after having just returned from being annoyed by the "20 items or less" sign in Wal Mart.

Yes, professional linguists can get personally annoyed at these kinds of linguistic things. We just can't get professionally annoyed at them -- which makes containing the personal annoyance all the harder.

I'm afraid we're going to lose the less~fewer one. The problem is that it is highly irregular -- what linguists call "suppletive" because 'less' and 'fewer' are not etymologically related. (Like 'go' and 'went', where the past tense of 'wend' replaced the original past form of 'go' in most English dialects.). I.e. the choice of 'less' or 'fewer' is strictly a lexical and not a general rule and has to be memorized. Then, as you almost pointed out, for the augmentive rather than the diminishing quantifier, 'more' is not irregular but is used for both count and mass nouns. So to take your example "I love you more." And we have 'I want more gunS and more butter." So "fewer gunS' but 'less butter' seems initially odd and unnatural except to old fogies like me. So this is one battle probably best given up. (Still annoys me though.Personally -- not professionally.)

damn you for reminding me of "one less bell to answer" because it's playing in a loop tape in my head now.

Re #1:

Whoa! Is this the SAME jffoster? Can't be.

Re #2:

Honest and sincere question: When you're talking subtracting a single, cannot it be "less"? For example, "one less bell to answer" is correct, but it'd have to be "three fewer bells to answer." No?

I hate it when people use words differently than I. Take Andrew Marvell. We all know that "vegetable" means either "something that tastes bad but is good for you" or "someone who is severely handicapped." But Marvell insists on writing "my vegetable love." Unless he's talking about a rutabega, he's just wrong.

And don't tell me that words change meaning as usage changes. Words have meanings, and those meanings are fixed forever. Like grammatical rules. If the Romans couldn't split infinitives, why should the English be allowed?

Everyone is so much dumber than I.

Well Mr. Blissett,

The old grammaire, she ain't what she used to be.

Sorry, but you are invoking a false rule here. You are going to lose this fight because the supposed distinction never existed - "less" has been used with count nouns for as long as the English language has been spoken.

See:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html

http://www.ldc.upenn.edu//myl/llog/MW_LessFewer.pdf

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1333

@jffoster

Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings (cord) but plink, plink, plink went my harpstrings (chord).

Check with your husband on this. If " 'I'm anxious to go to the party' " ... indicates the presence of reluctance," would not the choice be between "some people are eager to engage Michael in conversations while others are eager to find the door"? Unless, of course, you are referring to people who are often nervous in close proximity to doors.

Oops. As I oft tell my students, proofread, proofread,proofread. I meant to construct my post thus: Check with your husband on this. If " 'I'm anxious to go to the party' ... indicates the presence of reluctance," would not the choice be between "some people are eager to engage Michael in conversations while others are eager to find the door"? Unless, of course, you are referring to people who are often nervous in close proximity to doors.

I seem to have closed the quote twice.

Terrific article! Equal parts insight and humor.

@jffoster:

You mention a linguist's perspective, but many linguists fall into the behavioral scientist category, not the stereotypical prescriptivist position. For a descriptive linguist, language is an ever-changing thing to be observed, not mandated.

However, communication is difficult without a common standard, so teaching students the current accepted standard of speaking and writing is an important part of academic life.

Luther -- It's a metaphor, for cryin' out loud. (Just don't ask me what it means.)

the one that gets me: titled and entitled

He is entitled to $10 million.

The lecture, titled "Poor Grammar and Word Usage," is at 5:00 p.m.

NOT

The lecture, entitled "Poor Grammar and Word Usage," is at 5:00 p.m.

I think we have already lost the battle on this one...

A grocery store in Dewitt, NY (Wegman's) has signs reading "10 items or fewer” over checkout lines. People in the area are rather well educated and they objected when the signs said “less.”

This is all about meaning. If you mean a general amount, a mass of "stuff," you say "less." If your intent is specific, you say "fewer." Therefore, "I'll see you in 5 minutes or less" is acceptable because you mean 5 minutes as a general chunk of time. If you mean it in specific terms, you use "fewer" as in, "If you have 10 items or fewer, I will serve you, but more than that and I will not."

This becomes confusing when we start using expressions in a general sense that once were specific; e.g., "The house is less than a mile away." Here, "mile" means a thousand paces (the old meaning-two steps). A pace is about 5 feet for the average person; ergo, a thousand paces is about 5,000 feet. Therefore, when one is walking, at the thousandth pace, the 2,000 step, we have reached exactly a "mile." If you are a pace short, you have walked fewer than a mile. Here, intent is everything.

Oh, and don't get me going on the second person singular and the history of why we erroneously teach students not to speak in the passive voice. Let's not have high standards; let's just dumb-down everything.

There's a number of dollar stores in New York City (they tend not to be in Manhattan) that display the phrase "all items 99cents less or more." It's obviously a group of stores located in neighborhoods where English is not the first nor the most commonly used language. But I've been trying to figure out what the hell this means, or what it's intended to mean, for years now. At first I thought it was just a mistake with the colloquial "more or less," as in "roughly" 99cents. Then I thought maybe it was all items 99cents less than their retail competitors, or an even higher quantity less than than their retail competitors. I admit that one's a stretch. Or perhaps it's just a very honest indication that "all" items are 99cents or less, but for a few that may be marginally more than 99cents. At any rate, I can't figure this out, though it brings me much pleasure.

There are :)

There is?

All my students are excited "for" today's snow day while I am pleased "about" it.

I was taught to "take" a book to school and "bring" it home (not bring a book to school).

Or was it bring a book to school and take it home?

Hahahahaha.

Thank you! This was a very unique column. Irregardless, I think some points were overlooked. Although I could care less, I wanted to add the expression "walk the walk" to list of irritants.

Well, you know, it's a doggy-dog world.

I'm a "less vs. well" freak, but try convincing students that the difference matters, and you'll spend the rest of the day with your head in your hands. Other ubiquitous phrases that set me off are "good paying jobs" instead of "jobs that pay well" and "grow your business" instead of "expand your business."

isugeezer-I have problems with this myself; I associate personal traits with institutions. So I'll say, "I.B.M. decided to cancel the contract." I should have written "The head of Engineering at I.B.M. decided to cancel the contract." I suppose it's a minor form of bigotry, so I make a strong effort to proofread well when it's important.

je_alex (11). you write:

" You mention a linguist's perspective, but many linguists fall into the behavioral scientist category, not the stereotypical prescriptivist position. For a descriptive linguist, language is an ever-changing thing to be observed, not mandated."

I am aware of NO linguist who "falls into the stereotypical prescriptivist position". Linguistics is about what IS, not what ought to be. It is the difference between science and ideology.

Mr. alex, go back and read carefully what I wrote in (1) and then in (5) and see if you really think I dont know what descriptive linguistics is and the difference between it and prescriptivist grammar. If you're still unsure and think I confused professional linguistic analysis with personal preferences, the fault must be mine, so show me how I confused you.

BTW Mr. Hiort (14) gives both description and prescription -- His second paragraph takes a prescriptivist stance, but his third paragraph accurately points out that people who have the 'less~fewer~ contrast will often use either with the same noun, depending on whether the plural is taken as a distributive or a collective. Interestingly, many languages have different plural affixes indicating this distinction. Zulu prefix aba- is distributive whereas ama- is collective. So "abaZulu" as in "Look at all the Zulus" but 'amaZulu' as in, "Among the Zulu....." (Note how English can use a singular as a collective here.). Some Latin nouns like 'focus' and 'locus' had distributive plurals (loci) and collective plurals (loca).

But the phrase "people who have the less~fewer' distinction is my phrase and not Mr. Hiort's. It is descriptive. It is actually my preference -- I am one of those people. That is NOT prescriptive unless I try to force it on everybody else.

Sorry about that "head of Engineering" capitalization mistake. Maybe I should follow my own advice.

Hmmm... I was taught that "prescriptive"="descriptive" and "proscriptive" meant proscribing or setting a "correct" standard. I'll need to go back and check on this. I've been exposed to too many languages to force grammar on anyone. Where I live now, they have a great deal of Gaelic in their English grammar and say things like, "I'm after going to the store," (a kind of pluperfect) and "He's good for dancing" (he's a good dancer). Each language has different elements; you can't take a grammar from one language and force it on another. Having said that, we do have hoch Deutsch and Tuscan Italian as arbitrary standards for commerce.

Too many items in line? From Harvard, can't count. From MIT, can't read. From BU, hurrying -- needs to make a BUck.

The Olympic theme song, which is now top of the Canadian iTunes sales, has as its key refrain line, "I believe in you and I". I tried to argue with my linguist husband that the fact that this song has the imprimatur of the Vancouver Olympic Committee along with other official bodies, may be enough to officially shift the acceptability in Canadian English of this usage of "I". He disagrees. At any rate, Canadian English teachers and profs are going to struggle with probably two generations arguing in favor of this usage from now on.

And what's wrong with "proactive"? You apparently haven't ever worked with colleagues who do absolutely nothing to forestall easily predicted problems, but only respond to them after they inevitably occur, to appreciate the value of this concept.

I didn't realize so many other OCD people existed. Bliss.

Affect vs. effect. My pet peeve. No one gets it right.

A dictionary with the original definition will cure one of the current abuse of "proactive." The interference of earlier learning with the effectiveness of later learning is worth a word. Misusing it to mean "active" is unfortunate. Thanks, Lee77, for "I could care less," especially.

It's curious how often phrases are misused to mean just about the opposite of what they originally or even obviously mean. "I could care less" is possible only when the speaker is not thinking about what's coming out of his or her mouth. So and so "went ballistic" is used to imply violent behavior, not the exhaustion of [a missile's] propellant, so that it continues to move ballistically, its momentum, gravity, and air resistance determining its remaining trajectory. And "quantum leap" is consistently used to mean a huge jump in energy or whatever, rather than the smallest possible change in energy.

Imo one really obnoxious misuse is "theory" combined with a dismissive adverb, as in "evolution is just a theory" or "only a theory." A little equivocation, and the next thing you know, you're lying with adverbs. To what extent it's just slovenly and to what extent it's consciously dishonest, who knows?

The lesser of two evils or the fewer of two evils?

Rhonda couldn't care less about Ronnie or she couldn't care fewer?

To improve health, eat less or eat fewer (potatoes)?

He drove fewer than 50 miles per hour or less than 50 miles per hour?

Daily, she drove fewer than 50 miles or less than 50 miles?

I am neither anxious nor eager to read comments about these questions. They will have minimum effect on the discussion, nor will they affect the way most people speak, write, or sing English. Careful diction and grammar and personal style will continue to persuade and delight crafty readers (to use Robert Scholes's term). Less (fewer?) crafty readers don't care. The choice can sometimes affect meaning.

No one has yet mentioned my pet language peeve--I admit, a matter of laziness, illogic, and talking-not-reading rather than grammar:

"I could care less"

Restaurants that offer a "prefix" or "pre fix" menu instead of a "prix fixe" option.

And "further" vs. "farther".

Ah, I feel so much better!

Quite enjoyable! A few comments:

"I'm anxious to go to the party" should (proscriptively) read "I'm anxious about going to the party", if you want to get technical...

"Or was it bring a book to school and take it home?" Pairs such as "bring-take" and "come-go", are directional -- bring toward, take away; come toward, go away from...

tee-hee lee77

"different than" instead of "different from" - actually my Mom's pet peeve, but I notice it too - especially now that "different than" seems to be winning in general usage

Jodidecker

Yes, we linguistic OCD types do exist in considerable numbers. I was infected with the disorder by Selma Morgan, my 5th grade English teacher nearly 50 years ago. That woman put the fear of God in you whenever you put pencil to paper. I never properly thanked her. I do so now.

There is my friend.
There are my friends.

Lighted v. lit??

Oh, and as for song lyrics and other types of creative writing, poetic license probably rules the day.

My two current pet peeves: "impactful," courtesy of certain HR professionals I have known ("impactful practices" - ugh), and "gifted," as in, "He gifted me with a lovely book on English usage." What's wrong with "effective" and "gave?"

Regina: the whole issue of ending a sentence with a preposition is a canard. The so-called prepositions are in fact adverbial particles and do not violate any laws of grammar or syntax in their placement. The grammar police are an annoyance up with which we should not put.

luther_blisset (#4): the locution "vegetable love" has been misread for over 300 years. Marvell's point is that vegetables must die to reproduce (compare "The grave's a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace"), whereas fruit trees (if not the fruit itself) do not need to die to reproduce. The distinction is discussed at length no later than Paracelsus (1493-1541) and has its origins in the _Natural History_ of Pliny the Elder (23-79).

Ah, Gina, you had me riding along, nodding in agreement, then you said "one of the reasons why..." - it was fingernails on the chalkboard of my linguistic sensibilities. Sigh.

Let me add one more error to the list(also driven home rpeatedly by a high school teacher-bless you or curse you Mrs. Turk). "We have more cars than any one in town". This leaves out "else". If they are in town, they cannot have more cars than themselves.

Thanks for your comments articulating much of my own petty annoyance. There is an apparent exception actually confirming the less/fewer rule:

A radio station in NY gives traffic and weather reports every 10 minutes. At the end of each report, the announcer informs listeners, "Next report in less than 10 minutes." That is correct usage since the statement (elliptically) intends "less than 10 minutes' time." If one cared that the next report would be in 9 minutes, rather than 10, i.e., counting minutes rather than time, the announcer would be correct in saying "fewer than 10 minutes." However, the issue is actually (less) time, not (fewer) minutes!

/SG

My Favorite Word to Hate: synergy.

My Favorite Phrase to Hate: state of the art.

And I hate "proactive" also but I can't find another word to use that expresses the same meaning.

My complaint: the confusion between 'prototype' and 'archetype'. The NPR folks like to err on that one a lot.

abreaux, "different than"/"different from" appears to be a British/American English usage distinction, not a matter of right/wrong. I looked it up in what at the time I thought was an authoritative English language source (although at the moment I can't remember which one), which indicated that "different from" is the most accepted form in the US, and "different than" is the correct form in the UK. I find "different than" to be much more common in educated SWE contexts in Canada than "different from", so I'd include Canada with Britain on that one.

One that makes me scratch my head is "choice" and "option." "I have two choices" is often said. Really? Or do you have two options and one choice to make? (And I'm a numbers guy, so FWIW.)

I really liked the article. As for the comments, some of them added less to the discussion; fewer comments might have been better. And "irregardless" is NOT acceptable English; it is, according to my Engliah teachers of 50 years ago, not even a word. By the way, pedantry is not diagnostic of OCD. See your shrink about that.

Nothing irritates me more than the following:

1) "very unique" - either something is unique or it isn't, period.

2) when people say "you welcome," instead of "your welcome" - this happens all the time and it drives me NUTS!

Whew. I feel better having gotten those issues off my chest. :)

@ isugeezer: I'm with you; that "growing your business" atrocity must be stopped, and the sooner the better.

I think we should rear children, raise cattle, and grow crops, but expand or enlarge businesses, colleges, programs, etc.

I guess it's OK with me if someone wants to grow faculty salaries a little bit, though of course I'd really prefer that he or she increase them instead.

jdp01001 - you mean "you're welcome", right?

DRIVES ME NUTS:
People who use "that" instead of "who".

Less is for things you can measure, fewer is for things you can count. "The low-fat cookie recipe calls for fewer than the usual 8 tablespoons of butter" or The low-fat cookie recipe calls for less than the usual 1/4 pound of butter".

No surprise that the Olympics theme song is ungrammatical. Even worse, the commentators have an awful new verb -- podium. It was bad enough to here "She still has a chance to medal in this event" but more than once I heard "She still has a chance to podium in this event"!

. . . and what about "share" as in "Let me share this information with you." AARRGGGHHH. Then there is "impact" as a verb as in "It impacts his ability to function."

And "The dog needs washed" for "The dog needs to be washed." Even better: The dog needs a bath!

What a FUN article.

enadler -- "needs washed" is regional -- "needs washing" would be correct -- wrong participle in the first. Drives me nuts, too.

Gina and others,
Several of you have mentioned usages that set my teeth on edge, but my decades as an academic editor have convinced (persuaded? -- had this argument more than once) me that, as several comments have said, language changes, and we just have to get used to it. Utterly true, and I do try. BUT we don't have to like it!

And one usage that has shown up in high-quality publications of all sorts -- and as little as 10 years ago was primarily conversational -- is the use of "likely" as an adverb. Argh! It's an adjective, though I recognize that "likely-ly" doesn't cut it. Anyone want to say "probably"? In that case, the adjective "probable" follows our standard way of making adverbs out of adjective. Couple that use with he over use of "venue" whenever a writer or speaker means "place," and you have such statements as "The venue will likely be the cafeteria." Shudder! Why not "probably" or "is likely to be"?

Finally, the so-called rule that "between" may (not can!!) be used only (not only be used) to introduce pairs of prepositional objects, while all larger numbers must be introduced by "among" was always a non-rule. For interested readers, I'd recommend the late Joe Williams' Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. It includes a section on "10 Non-rules" that's well worth the time.
Bruce Smith

jffoster and slowlearner: thank you. I agree with Slowlearner on this one, but jffoster at least makes a useful distinction between personal and professional annoyance and obviously knows what he is talking about.

mbelvadi: "it's a bit more complicated than that, because there are actually three prepositions that appear after the adjective "different": "from," "than," and "to." "Different from" is probably the most common and is standard in both American and British English, "different than" is standard in both American and British, but may be more frequent in American than in British English, "different to" is standard in British usage but not in American. And if you want to argue with your husband about whether "in you and I" is acceptable, you can cite Huddleston and Pullum's *The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language" (463), where they say that such a usage is indeed standard for some, but all, speakers.

By the by, I really hope that most people, including Barreca, are talking about personal pet peeves than actual judgments about grammaticality...

My pet peeve, slightly different from most of the ones listed here because it's an outright dumb error, but way too common for my taste: "I could of gone to the store".

More amusing than annoying: I graded an essay recently in which the student spelled "ludicrous" as "ludacris".

I don't see the problem with that usage of "share". People can share lunches and they can share information. Am I supposed to say "I will give you some of my lunch" instead of "I will share my lunch with you"?

"The dog needs washed" for "the dog needs washing" or "the dog needs to be washed" seems commonest from Pennsylvania. German influence?

Fowler seems responsible for the that/which superstition, basically claiming that "which" can't be used restrictively. Interesting distinction, based on nothing more than taste. English as a foreign language of course focuses on how people actually speak and write rather than on grammarians' theories. The text I used back in the '70s had a memorable example:

The new vicar said he would wear no clothes that would distinguish him from others.
The new vicar said he would wear no clothes which would distinguish him from others.
The new vicar said he would wear no clothes, which would distinguish him from others.

Fowler would say the second sentence isn't good English. Sure.

41. speterfreund
Proper citation to Winston Churchill for "up with which we should not put."

Personal irritation - misuse of apostrophes. I have been known to erase them on menu boards at restaurants: two pizza's for $10.

A solution to the less/fewer debate from the Hy-Vee chain of food stores "approximately 12 items" which also reduces checkout line rage.

Another from super(and not so super)markets:

The aisle for "can goods." An incomplete sentence, of course; what can the goods do?

occidentalir... "I could of gone to the store".

Yeah, it should be, "I could of went to the store."

Dear Lee77: "Irregardless"? And Lyndelltyann, just how does the Hy-Vee chain define "approximately"?


On a general note: As a teacher of basic writing, I find all of these hilarious

They are hilarious and enormously engaging on this snowy day. It's great to read comments that are more funny than nasty and more lively than angry.

On a snowy Friday afternoon, these brought a lift! Thank you, everyone.

Does anyone remember "Winstons taste good/Like a cigarette should"? GGRrrrr. I don't mind "Me and my shadow/Walking down the Avenue" though.

Wouldn't Professor Henry Higgins have enjoyed these comments?

The following is not, as far as I can tell, technically ungrammatical, but it does contain two of the most repulsive new uses of otherwise perfectly good words (CAPS for emphasis):

"The bank will CRAFT a new financial PRODUCT."

The verb "to craft" has some dignity when it's used in regard to woodworking, and shouldn't be robbed of it by Wall Streeters or politicians (who apply the verb to legislation). "Product" has the sound of tangible heft and shouldn't, in my opinion, be used to describe a shell game.

An honest sentence would read, "The bank will concoct a new financial scheme."

Dank48, re your (60), a couple of notes.

The "needs V-ed" versus "needs V-ing" was the subject of a recent query on Ask a Linguist and there were a number of replies from some of the panelists (I didn't reply to this one so no personal plugging here.). You might find it interesting. Just google Ask a Linguist, find the home page, and then go to "Recent Questions".

With respect to _which_ and _that_ as relativizers, I don't know about Fowler, but is it possible that he said that _that_ generally only introduces restrictive relative clauses while _which_ does either? That's what your examples illustrate and that's what linguists who specialize on English I believe usually say.

For general information, THAT is a general complementizer, introdicing embedded sentential complements as well as relative clauses and its use as both a relative clause introducer and an improximate demonstrative go back to Old English ~ Anglo-Saxon. The ancestors of _who_ and _which_ were there then too but only used for interrogatives. It appears that one of the few real influences of French onto English syntax was the rise in Middle English of the interrogatives 'who' and 'which' as relative clause introducers. This is a characteristic of French but not generally of the Germanic languages. German relativizers are _der, ..._' and derived from the demonstratives. And the Danorwedish and Icelandic post posed enclitic definite articles are also. -et for inanimate / neuter nouns and -en for animate or masc. The -en of Swedish _anden_ 'the duck' for instance is cognate with the English distal demonstrative _yon_.

he evidence appears to support the theory that the WH relativizers who and which were adopted primarily by the upper classes while _that_ continued on down to the present and is now apparently reasserting itself and who/-ich are retreating before it.

JFFoster, thanks for the Ask a Linguist reference. I'll check it out.

Fowler is really down on restrictive "which," perhaps because he sees how neatly the work would be divided if "that" did all the restrictive work, leaving "which" to handle the nonrestrictive. But language isn't always that considerate. I like Fowler, who's grumpy but at least has a coherent opinion, and like Orwell, he eschews the easy anti-US blame game for what's wrong with English. But I think here he let theory override experience.

Does anyone else still find "convince to do s.th." (for "persuade") irritating? As if it mattered.

Other annoying forms:

"He graduated high school." - If it were possible, this might explain why the high school turned out the way it did. It also may be part of the general attempt to exterminate prepositions, as in "He bought a couple nails." Poor little *of* is being dropped more than it is used lately.

"You can get most any class you need if you register early." Who declared *almost* to be untouchable? My first notice of this abuse on a large scale was a declaration by Sears that it had most anything you need.

"I don't care if the earth is warming." But you do care if it isn't? Try an occasional *whether or not*.

Any use of a noun as a verb: "Liaison with them." "Laser that barcode." And while we're at it, stop making up verbs out of nouns; *surveil* indeed. Or adverbs out of words that already have enough to do as both a noun and verb form: "I might could bring you a cold pop."

The list is endless. It makes for a fun rant, though :-)

Joseph Williams has written a terrific essay called "The Phenomenology of Error" on this very thing.

And universities (of all the places that should not!) regularly publicize faculty who have "authored" a book.

Gina, I love you're article.

The reason why is because it's funny.

Your more funnier than that guy that wrote that other article.

When I was a teen and told my mother that there were "less people in my class" than last year, she would mock me. "Reeeealy!? This year, they are missing arms and legs?!"

How about at the gas station pump... "Please prepay in advance."

Sigh.

I'm also anti-proactive. Can we start a support group?

Just for the sake of clarity: my first comment above was a joke. I was satirizing those who think words always mean the same thing or that there's a meaning of words beyond their actual usuage.

Friendly tip for #76 (from One Who Has Been There and Knows):

Do not--DO NOT--use irony or most any form of joke in your comments. Though more intelligent, informed, reasonable, earnest and civil than 99.9 percent of commenters on any other blog, "Brainstorm" commenters are largely a very literal lot.

Humor about academe: a rich field ("Straight Man," "Small World," "Lucky Jim," "Wonder Boys," etc.). Humor in academe: one of those "short books."

Those without humor are probably at Literal Arts colleges. Yall have a good what's left of the weekend.

--the "less-fewer" issue always was and always will be nothing more than a usage opinion; it has nothing to do with correct or incorrect grammar; usage changes, so "eat less potatoes" is now becoming "acceptable," as it always has been--as pointed out in comment #6;

--the same is true of the old insistence on "no preposition at the end"; it never was a "grammar rule"--just a usage opinion, and a very stupid one; we don't need to justify putting prepositions at the end of clauses or sentences by calling them "adverbial particles"; prepositions are prepositions, and they go at the end just as well as they go anywhere else in English sentences, John Dryden be damned.

While I agree with ulyssesmsu (79) save for a a minor proviso I'll note below, I wouldn't call the "rule" about not stranding a preposition "stupid". In fact, stranded prepositions are relatively rare among languages of the world, that is, rare among languages that have prepositions -- quite a number (Turkish and Japanese for instance) do not. It is found in the North Germanic languages and began showing up in Middle English (bur see below). They are common in Dutch, but only so far as I know found in some regional dialects of German. However some of the Dutch and regional German cases are open to a different analysis. Stranded prepositions are absent from most French dialects, occuring so far as I know only in Louisiana, New Brunswick, Northern Maine, i.e. areas in close and long contact with English. Dryden, you're right, be ignored -- English is a very different language from Latin.
But preposition stranding was sparse from Old English. There are some things that facially are stranded prepositions that may actually be verb particles. That is, structures in which the "preposition" may have been a part of the verb constituent rather than the noun. E.g. (Note that OE worked like modern German and Dutch and the conjugated verb came at the end of a subordinate clause.)

sumne dael thaes meoses the heo mid beweaxen waes
some part the:POSS mos-POSS which/that it with begrown was
'some part of the moss with which/that it was overgrown' OR
'... ... ... ... ... ... which/that it was overgrown with.'

(from Saint Oswald in AElfric's Lives of the Saints)

instead of 'mid' being a preposition here which object thaes mosses, it may be part of the verb and mid bewaexen, rather like the verb in 'Look at that!' in which 'that' is not the object of "preposition" at but the direct object of the verb 'look at'. Note we never say

**At the mouse was looked hungrily by the cat.

but rather
The mouse was looked at hungrily by the cat.'

Remnember that linguists only have to justify our analyses. That people consistently say things a given way is its own "justification' and our data-- it's our job to describe and explain it. Linguists call things like at in 'look at' or 'up' in 'bring up' verb particles, not because we want to "justify" putting them at the end of the sentence, though some usage mavens who don't know much about language in general nor English in particular might. We distinguish them from prepositions because they behave differently syntactically. We can see both stranded prepositions and verb particles in the following sentence.

What did you bring this topic most people aren't going to like our position about up for?

Haha--cute. You're really a lot more fun, jff, when you're not being offended or offensive! Let's see more of this side of you.

Why the gratuitous "or offensive"? More flies with sugar than with vinegar, etc.

I'm definitely on the descriptive side of these debates, but as an English teacher, I have a huge investment in getting the strongest, liveliest sentences out of my students as possible -- if only because it makes reading 125 essays every four weeks much more bearable!

So these dangling prepositions are often a symptom of a larger problem: the sentence hasn't found its true actor or action.

Ex. Deductive reasoning is the technique Hobbes solves problems with.

It's no better, really to correct only the preposition: "Deductive reasoning is the technique with which Hobbes solves problems."

Instead, the writer needs to find the actor -- Hobbes -- and the action -- solves: "Hobbes solves problems with deductive reasoning."

Or, if the sentence would achieve more coherent in the paragraph by beginning with "deductive reasoning," the writer has a few options: "Through deductive reasoning, Hobbes solves problems" or "Deductive reasoning solves the problems Hobbes inherited from past philosophers."

But I'm confident that many of these little errors can be corrected when writers find a specific actor and a specific action.

I'm sorry to be late to the party. I won't repeat what's already been said here - I'll just offer my own pet peeves (some of which are really just minor annoyances):
1. incorrect placement of "only." This is a minor annoyance. It pains me to note that Gina herself wrote "...a song called "Lie, Lady, Lie" would have different connation and could only be played on a country music station," which should have been "could be played on only a country music station."
2. "tasked," as in, "I was tasked with the job of discussing new information on food allergies." Pet peeve. How about, "I was asked to talk about what's new in food allergies"?
3. "I could of went..." Even "I could have went..."
4. The people who argue for the correctness of"10 items or less" by saying it's a shortened version of "10 items or less than that." Yeah, right.

I agree with everyone who said this was fun and the comments were much friendlier than comments about typical Chronicle articles.

Welcome to the "party" terrymurray (84).

Let me point out two, or maybe one and a half things. "Correctness" as you use it in (4) is a social notion, not a linguistic one. If a speech community consistently says something a certain way, that is as far as the grammar of their dialect is concerned, "correct". It might annoy you and me personally, but that doesn't mean it's linguistically inconistent or "incorrect".

But justification of analysis is a linguistics notion, and while your "Yeah, right" is neither an argument nor a refutation of an argument, if you mean that the people claiming that "...10 items or less" is a form from which "..than that" has been deleted have simply asserted it, then yhour "Yeah right" is justified as a demand from them to produce evidence for such an assertion.

Re "different from" vs. "different than":

Consider the sentences "A is different from B" and "A is different than B." The first sentence could be re-worded as "A differs from B," but could the second be changed to "A differs than B"?

Recently I heard someone use "separate than" in a sentence. Will this become a common usage one day? Time will tell.

Re: "to podium" - When a usage such as this gets going, variant forms come thick and fast. Let's see:

Principal parts: to podium / podiumed / podiumed
Gerund: podiuming
Variants: podiumating, podumizing
Others: podiumation, podiumative, podiumification, podiumated, podiumating, podiumate, podiumator...

(zzzzzzz) --E.A.C.

Please note: National Grammar Day is March 4, 2010.