Was/were are not interchangeable in this case. 'Were' signifies an imaginary situation (as in 'if I had been').
'Was' would be used for an actual event which occurred.
'Less' is used with uncountable nouns: 'I drink less alcohol these days'.
'Fewer' is used with plural nouns: 'I drink fewer bottles of wine these days'.
One that really irks me is "store X, cheaper prices"; the price isn't cheap: the product is cheap.
Geoff
Geoff
Were was emphasized in subjunctive mode throughout school, but it seemed more and more people used was anyway.
"Hinglish" is becoming a real language -- at least here in the Midwest US where we have large medical systems and research universities.
I am the victim of a public education but FIW, I generally use "was like" to indicate something that was thought but only expressed non verbally if at all. "And he was like, dude... seriously" or "I was like " dude... TF was that." If the subject actually said something I would use "he/she said..."
Every language is a mishmash of languages. Which is also constantly changing. France was the high language of Europe for several centuries: the language of the nobility. This is one of the reasons why French words are so widespread.
Geoff, have you noticed Aussies are starting to say 'impordant' for important? I've particularly noticed it with TV presenters/reporters. Arrrrgh!!!!
I don't think you are a victim of public education at all. And I'm sure that you were never taught in school to say, "he was like", or "I was like".
This is something that has corrupted our everday culture for quite a while.
Yes, plus many other annoyances: 'medalled' in particular gives me the toms (Cockney rhyming slang)
Who could forget the Howard government's "incentivation' (sic) slogan?
Geoff
We are currently cursed with holiday advertisements offering early booking with a 'Zero Pounds Deposit'!
Some illiterate actually gets paid handsomely for making up this garbage.
Some illiterate actually gets paid handsomely for making up this garbage.
Well... thank the stars that the trials and tribulations of life corrupted early primates into us. If not for that, we would need to throw poop to aggravate each other. 🤢
Be careful where you go with this thread.
Has this thread been heating up? Perhaps we should discuss thermal management.
For foreign languages I only learned a year or less of Latin (wanting to go into the sciences I thought it would be useful, but in retrospect, any more commonly used language would have been more helpful), but I seemed to have picked up things here and there. A fellow student in English class mentioned the French word for cold. In English we say "this object is cold," but the word's literal translation to English means "this object has cold." This is counterintuitive to physics, but of course languages predate much of our scientific understanding. I really should have learned more languages, it would have been mind expanding.
For foreign languages I only learned a year or less of Latin (wanting to go into the sciences I thought it would be useful, but in retrospect, any more commonly used language would have been more helpful), but I seemed to have picked up things here and there. A fellow student in English class mentioned the French word for cold. In English we say "this object is cold," but the word's literal translation to English means "this object has cold." This is counterintuitive to physics, but of course languages predate much of our scientific understanding. I really should have learned more languages, it would have been mind expanding.