Can any one explain to me why the sight of 'Express Lane - 10 Items or Less' might elicit feelings of wincing despair and superiority in a linguaphile?

This is a situation that arises when a die-hard prescriptivist, suffering from chronic arthropod infestation of the distal GI tract, contemplates the distinction between "fewer" and "less" while shopping for Rolaids.

As for the wincing despair I, too, am baffled. The misplaced feeling of superiority might be easier to explain, but why they would accept "more" with both counted units and measured units is beyond me. What this has to do with national motel chains also baffles me.

regarding word rage resulting from changing usage, David Crystal reminds us, "The only languages that do not change are dead ones."

"The only languages that do not change are dead ones."

That's it! We need to kill English to preserve (or embalm) it. Now to start a society and a website.

Latin changed quite a bit between 9th century BCE and the 15th century CE, when humanists like JC Scaliger and D Erasmus killed Latin off by prescribing that only the Classical grammar and style were to be used.

never mind... but it's still not a question about suppurate. ;-P

Myridon, check AWAD for 02/01/08 -- it's all related.

-ron o.

I'm baffled: what corporation is called "Suppurate"? Googling the word leads to many entries that use the word in its literal, medical sense. The only possible "corporate" definition is an obscure Japanese art collective...but that doesn't seem to be a "corporation" as usually defined. Otherwise we could say that "Sex Pistols" is a "corporation" - band names, art collectives, etc., hardly seem to fit the definition of corporation. Not to mention that using such an obscure corp. is a bit...odd.

So seriously: some corporation actually named itself "Suppuration"? Nearly as bad as the medical entity some years back around here that named itself "Emphesys"...good job, using the first several letters of "emphysema" in your name - such an apt connotation!

Don't click here, there be spoilers ahead! (As Faldo noted within and withal.)

Back when I was a prescriptivist I would have agreed wholeheartedly, but I was having too much heartburn. So turned in my pre-credentials for those of a de- and now much more content with the State of the World

Thanks for the clarification, everyone.

I just feel better that I'm not the only one that didn't get the reference.

I can admit to slight feelings of superiority when I hear someone use the word 'irregardless.'

I feel a tad guilty about that.

irregardless

My superior intuition about the prefix in irregardless is that it is the same intensifier as the in- in inflammable. The prefix in- (also il-, im-, or ir-) in Latin was not only used for negation, it was an intensifier, also. There was also another, third, meaning of 'in, into, on' as in invade or invent (literally 'come upon', 'find', etc.

and my innate cynicism informs me that irregardless really was (originally) just a fortuitous* blend of regardless and irrespective -- in the latter of which the prefix -ir is not an intensifier, but a negation.

*and I don't mean lucky!!

-joe (each of us succumbs to peevology on occasion) friday

Boy, I'll bet that could lead to some misunderstandings and nights on the couch. "How do I look?"
"Inelegant. Ouch! No,no, I meant that as an intensifier..."

"irregardless
an erroneous word that, etymologically, means the exact opposite of what it is used to express, attested in non-standard writing from 1912, probably a blend of irrespective and regardless. Perhaps inspired by the double negative used as an emphatic."

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

regardless is to irregardless
as irregardless is to irregardlessly
as preventive is to preventative
as important is to importantly

Join me all in my quest to curtail unnecessary keystrokes

Not so, Douglas Harper, you are being silly. No word can mean the exact opposite of what it is intended to express. Words transfer information between a minimum of two human beings and any validation is only subject to the sucessful transfer of the intended meaning.

But irregardlessly, most double negatives are perceived by the ear as intensifiers or emphatics, especially here in the South where when you say "I don't want no mo grits" it means that you really doesn't want any more grits at the moment.

Douglas Harper

Sorry, but it's my etymology, and it differs from Mr Harper's.

Yeah, right.

a preventative - a preventive measure noun vs adjective
importantly - with an important air adverb vs adjective

It doesn't sound like a matter of keystrokes to me.

I don’t see inflammable much if any anymore, I almost always or always see flammable instead. Perhaps some accident victims had taken inflammable to mean not ignitable.

man, what a puff ball pitch that was!