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Saturday, 25 October 2008
More movie, fewer grammar
Yow. I was just flipping channels, and stopped briefly on TNT, just long enough to see this promotional material down in the left-hand corner of the screen:
MORE MOVIE...
LESS COMMERCIALS
Not "fewer" commercials -- "less." I'm perfectly serious. The message comes through loud and clear: "More movie... less grammar."
Fortunately, Google tells me I'm not the first to notice this, so the country has not gone completely to pot. Except ... what does it say that this has been pointed out, apparently more than once, and nothing's been done about it? Folks, this is way, WAY worse than "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should."
Posted by Brad Warthen at 08:33 PM in Popular culture, Words
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Comments
Please follow up on you prior post, with less movie and more grammar, and expound on your judicial philosophy as it relates to the current presidential race. In my opinion that is the fundamental issue of this election, and perhaps of our time.
Posted by: pg | Oct 25, 2008 8:52:18 PM
Will do -- if not over the weekend, then during the coming week. I have a lot to say about that. It might even be a separate column.
But right now, having prepared my column to post tonight, I'm going to go watch the third game of the World Series. Even I need some downtime...
Posted by: Brad Warthen | Oct 25, 2008 9:04:45 PM
I am looking forward to it. And despite what I've written in the past, I expect I'll appreciate your thoughts. Hope your team wins.
Posted by: pg | Oct 25, 2008 9:29:29 PM
Thanks, Brad. You've brought up one of my pet peeves. I'm thrilled, more or less.
Sometimes fewer is more. :)
Posted by: p.m. | Oct 26, 2008 1:40:33 AM
"The traditional view is that less applies to matters of degree, value, or amount and modifies collective nouns, mass nouns, or nouns denoting an abstract whole while fewer applies to matters of number and modifies plural nouns. Less has been used to modify plural nouns since the days of King Alfred and the usage, though roundly decried, appears to be increasing. Less is more likely than fewer to modify plural nouns when distances, sums of money, and a few fixed phrases are involved and as likely as fewer to modify periods of time ." From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. And here it is from the pen of King Alfred himself (c 888) "Swa mid læs worda swa mid ma, swæ{edh}er we hit {asg}ereccan ma{asg}on."
Posted by: Brett | Oct 26, 2008 9:24:46 AM
"Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!"
Posted by: bill | Oct 26, 2008 11:19:52 AM
If Obama is elected, you will be hearing lots of bad grammar - Obonics.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Oct 26, 2008 1:41:02 PM
I agree with you, Brad. Egregious grammatical errors like that one are really irritating. I don't mind casual colloquialisms in speech, but I expect written material (unless quotes or fictional writing intended to convey culture or class) to be reasonably grammatically correct.
Posted by: Karen McLeod | Oct 26, 2008 8:47:46 PM
You've obviously never stepped foot into the advertising industry. Of course they know that it's grammatically incorrect. There were probably 20+ people that spent 3 weeks working on the graphics and tag.
"More movie, less commercials" just sounds better and looks better. "More/Less" - is catchier and will resonate better with the American viewer.
Can't we just be happy that TNT is admitting that 25 minutes of commercials in a 2 hour movie renders the movie ridiculous and unwatchable?
Posted by: purpley | Nov 25, 2008 12:39:32 PM
