There's Nothing Wrong With Saying "10 Items or Less": Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism

tomscott.com - @tomscott - If you see the phrase "10 items or less" in a supermarket and immediately cringe and complain that it should be "10 items or fewer"... well, you are not going to like this week's video.

[@GoranXII]

IIRC the last time the French Academy tried de-Anglicising the language, one of the big newspapers asked, rather sarcastically, what they intended to do about 'sandwich'.

[@profd65]

Well, but it makes sense to use a foreign word for a foreign item. It makes no sense to invent a pseudo-French word for "taco" or "pizza."

[@spare7230]

@@profd65 Taconi though. yes I am aware this comment is a year old

[@maltager5106]

Personally, I'm not at all a fan of the sheer amount of Anglicisms in French, and other languages. Listening to French often feels like listening to English with French grammar. Of course, I can understand to an extent "sandwich", but when people are replacing already existing words in French with English words, that's going a bit far. For me, when I speak English, I try my best to use British English words as opposed to American words since I believe language is very much a part of culture. Seeing everyday French filled to the brim with Anglicisms saddens me greatly.

[@TheGrindelwald]

Be cool, speak deutch. Can you speak ein bisschen deutsch with me? Be cool, speak deutsch. Maybe then vielleicht verstehe ich sie.

[@maltager5106]

Ich mag keine Anglizismus auf Französisch

[@someoneontheinternet3090]

When you watch a few of these in a row you get the impression that he doesn't like the French

[@demerzel3798]

Daryle Henry Nobody likes the French or their grammar.

[@maelstrom57]

Au contraire, I think he's definitely a francophile.

[@mejhdhhicbfshihids652]

Jackson As Someone Who Is Learning French I Agree

[@deborahhanna6640]

French: they have 70 letters, but they only pronounce 3.

[@fresch4395]

nobody does except for the french

[@fakjbf3129]

The British Isles was invaded so many times that it held a grudge and eventually invaded everywhere else.

[@shinitai8618]

no replies after three years and 311 likes... sorry if i ruined it

[@chrissatriano1800]

Were

[@mevoogle]

4 years now

[@IrvingIV]

@@chrissatriano1800 No. The british Isles is being treated as a collective, like sand. Granted, they should have used an s free term, but still.

[@ciara7172]

Were*

[@nicfripp4159]

All you need know about the "immortals" of the Academie Français is that they took so long to decide the French word for hovercraft that it was obsolete before they finished their deliberations

[@lindseylindsey9200]

That’s not all their fault, their hovercraft was so full of eels that they couldn’t investigate it properly

[@gadgetman4494]

"English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys, clubs them on the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar."

[@jerolampila9976]

Sauna.

[@orlandomoreno6168]

@@BastardSugah No. Not the way English does

[@nichl474]

@@BastardSugah English is the master of "stealing". 70% of the language is made of spare parts from other languages

[@vasilicateodor1862]

@@nichl474 liar

[@thomastakesatollforthedark2231]

@@vasilicateodor1862 liar? How is that a lie?

[@TheFastolf]

I love how he gets all presciptive about being descriptive.

[@davidwalter3565]

"NO IT'S TEN OR LESS/FEWER ITEMS" - me ten seconds into the video.

[@huntersullivan51]

No tolerance for intolerance.

[@gamhacked]

@@huntersullivan51 Fight intolerance with intolerance. Hmm...

[@huntersullivan51]

@@gamhacked Get out filthy lib

[@sergeant5848]

Dammit. You beat me to that comment..... by about 3 years.

[@indigoziona]

I remember being sad about descriptivism because it meant I couldn't be pedantic about grammar, but it turns out you can be pedantic with the grammar pedants, which is much more fun than tormenting some poor person just trying to get their point across in a relatable vernacular.

[@michaelhird432]

I love how australia has contributed so little to english that tom's example of our word in english was "kookaburra"

[@dielaughing73]

Stone the flamin' crows!

[@bloodyhell8201]

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK

[@Milesco]

Well, there's "Foster's" -- apparently it's Australian for beer.

[@michaelhird432]

@@Milesco never heard anyone say that, could be a regional thing

[@Milesco]

@@michaelhird432 : It was an advertising tagline for Foster's lager that was spoken by Paul Hogan in TV commercials (in the U.S., at least) for many years back in the 1980s and '90s.

[@MrDartiste]

everybody uses "hash-tag" or "e-mail"(we say "mail"). The Academie is soooo old-school but the video is right for most of the French, it's the autority. For example, everybody in france uses " juste" as " just " but the Academie decided that it was an anglicism and that it's incorrect, even if it's used by 80% of the population....

[@cdavid2200]

"Juste" is how it's 'always' been spelt. That wasn't a forced change

[@krissp8712]

@@cdavid2200 hein ? Il n'a jamais parlé de l'orthographe

[@icameherejusttocomment550]

Didn't just in English come from French though?

[@SlimeMasterNate]

@@icameherejusttocomment550 Nope, the Normans, who spoke french, conquered England and said conquest caused English to be massively influenced by french and adopt a lot of it's words, but English is still a Germanic language at it's core. For example, the most common and important words spoken in English are Germanic in origin.

[@deviladvocate21]

@@SlimeMasterNate They meant to ask "doesn't 'just' in English come from French," not "doesn't English come from French".

[@WaleighWallace]

I feel like sending this every teacher who ever responded to “can I go to the bathroom” with “I don’t know, can you?”

[@neuralwarp]

My teachers would have asked "Why? Do you need a bath?"

[@dgphi]

If you are asking for permission, then "can I" is completely logical.

[@Hashem541]

@@neuralwarp lmao yes

[@Humulator]

Can I is perfectly acceptable to be "permission to". There are many of these "wrong" things that most English speakers do.

[@sylv512]

​@@nameistanya LMAO genius

[@lukemolwitz9769]

'O'h hello' h'ow a''r'e'' '''you''?'

[@woodfur00]

+Luke Molwitz 11'm gR8, 7)(4n% fUr 42k11ng.

[@woodfur00]

squorsh There is no such thing as "too Homestuck".

[@melvin8d671]

+woodfur00 But there is "too Undertale"

[@woodfur00]

E-man - EL Please don't start that.

[@bcubed72]

go home ee cummings youre drunk

[@StephSinalco]

The members of the French Academy are referred as "Immortals" not because they don't die (you don't say) or are that important they won't be ever forgot, but because their number is constant. As soon as one dies, he's replaced by a new member. There's always 40 elected members exactly at the Academy, making the institution and its members sort of immortal :)

[@filton0]

"There's always 40 elected members..." There ARE!!!

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

@@filton0 Hahaha, Prescriptivist! But seriously though, it's ''there are''

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

Also thanks for the Info Mr OP

[@BodyMusicification]

I'd use There're

[@Milesco]

​@@cerebrummaximus3762 : Well it would be "There are always 40 elected members at the Academy", not "They are 40 elected members..."

[@donna30044]

I'm too old for irony; in fact, in my advanced years I've attained the opposite of irony: now I'm wrinkly.

[@sharkwaffle1582]

hehe that was a good one :)

[@rattywoof5259]

The creased me up.

[@EebstertheGreat]

If you are ever trapped for days in a room with nothing else to read and find yourself perusing the front matter of a dictionary, you will find they are quite explicit that the rules of English are not exact, constant, or formal, and that the dictionary (especially if it's a print dictionary) does not includes all words, senses, spellings, or pronunciations. Even the OED says this, and it is certainly true. Pronunciation guides in particular should be taken only as a general guide to the most common usage, since practically every English word has a broad diversity of accepted pronunciations around the world.

[@soapibubblesthestrange9972]

Trapped in a room for days on end huh... wonder what that’d be like...

[@EebstertheGreat]

@@soapibubblesthestrange9972 I could use a good dictionary right about now.

[@MazdaRX7007]

This comment aged like wine..

[@sunriselg]

the word "whovian" is in the oxford dictionary, but not in the part of my computer that does red underlines.

[@silviasanchez648]

Your computer needs some cultural update, me think...

[@petrie911]

Clearly the best position is descriptoprescriptivism: this is how the language is currently being used, and therefore you're wrong if you don't use it that way.

[@eoghan.5003]

I'm a fan of prescripto-descriptivism: this is how language ought to be used but meh, we really can't be arsed

[@Somerandomdude-ev2uh]

Technically most descriptivists do agree it's wrong to deviate from common practice.

[@WillKemp]

Not necessarily wrong, maybe just not right yet, but give it time and everyone else will catch up

[@EnigmaticLucas]

In my opinion, only rules that are natural to English are valid. The rules against ending a sentence with a preposition and splitting an infinitive were shoehorned into English to make it more like Latin, so I consider them invalid.

[@bentoth9555]

@@EnigmaticLucas not just to make it more like Latin, but done by one playwright to convince people that, because his plays were more like Latin, they were "better."

[@dejureclaims8214]

This video challenged my deeply-held beliefs and now I am offended.

[@dalmationblack]

+Alex Stein Go on twitter. You can legitimately report people for having opinions that differ from yours...

[@guardingdark2860]

+dalmation black And then claim they gave you PTSD when they call you out on your bullshit.

[@bored_person]

+dalmation black That's a trap for bogus reports.

[@dalmationblack]

ijfharvey But it is combined with other options, it's not a check box of it's own

[@shartbake1134]

Yep

[@sketchesofpayne]

The one I can't let go of is people typing "then" instead of "than" when making a comparison. I've met people who speak correctly and type it incorrectly!

[@mariafe7050]

They're homonyms, what did you expect?

[@wanderingwonder111]

@@mariafe7050 In my accent they sound nothing alike. Affect vs effect on the other hand...

[@machalot]

They used to be the same word. We shouldn't really need both.

[@kalengray4073]

they sound the same to me with my accent so thats why i do it. sorry

[@FatedHandJonathon]

@@machalot They did? Like, a single word was used in both cases, or a single ancestral word split into two very different use cases? Because I can't see a single ideological link between them.

[@JoelCarli]

"Courriel" is used a lot more here in Quebec, interestingly.

[@JarvisPatterson01]

This is true

[@jolenethiessen357]

On the prairies too. It's always courriel.

[@alsamuef]

The correct way is "11 items then fuck off"

[@laurenconrad1799]

Olaf Mainframe Sergey Do you mean that I can check out 11 items at the grocery store but then I have to leave? Or do you mean that if I have 11 items, I should not bother checking out?

[@4TheRecord]

No, no, no, Double Price for more than 10 items.

[@antibiden]

Agreed

[@duncathan_salt]

in Canadian French, courrier électronique actually caught on - but in a portmanteau form, courriel. I had no idea that wasn't the original form of the word until now!

[@sharkwaffle1582]

now that’s the best way to reject Anglicism: take an English slang term, trace the term back to its roots, translate it literally, and then bastardize it again but in your own language this time

[@Lunam_D._Roger]

​@@sharkwaffle1582So, literally everything that English does. Got it.

[@UnPuntoCircular]

"Fewer" - Stannis

[@EsseroEson]

+UnPuntoCircular That line by Stannis made me love him so much when I didn't even like him before that....then the end of season 5 rolled around and I hated him.

[@Gambit771]

+Beans Is he different in the books?

[@elektronationz8033]

Te pillé

[@thomy2562]

As CGP Grey said: "Words are what we make them."

[@muffycat]

Ah! I love CGP Grey :)

[@a2rhombus2]

One more thing: if you tell me something isn't a word, but you understood what I meant, it's a word.

[@мирвовсеммире-ы1и]

ahyuhgrii

[@warrior_aa]

@@мирвовсеммире-ы1и what is that

[@мирвовсеммире-ы1и]

@@warrior_aa it's another form of the perfectly understable word eye-uhgrii

[@warrior_aa]

@@мирвовсеммире-ы1и ok....

[@Healermain15]

And since nobody understood what that means, it's not a word.

[@solaris9426]

"That doesn't mean that you should start sprinkling apostrophes all over the place" Y'all'd've would like a word with you.

[@zoch9797]

wtf is that? You all would have would like a word... You all had have would like a word.. You all did have would like a word...

[@solaris9426]

@@zoch9797 I was being silly by saying the appostrophe-riddled word y'all'd've itself would like a word with Tom.

[@Liggliluff]

Tom Scott probably mean't more like in plural's where you place it by accciden't.

[@caiawlodarski5339]

You all would have ?

[@solaris9426]

@@caiawlodarski5339 yes, that is what y'all'd've is short for.

[@amilynh4]

This (largely prescriptivist) high school English teacher LOVES this video. Ultimately, although I point out to my students how Formal Written English is "expected" to be, and what might get them brownie points in a job application letter, college essay, or on some standardized test, I also point out that ours is a Bastard Language That Has Three Daddies (and that number is probably conservative), and that communication and clarity are most important in speech and dialogue. I hope that descriptivism and discussion of origins and usage helps them...while my prescriptivism about writing shows them how to code-switch for those whose judgement will affect them.

[@amadouvier]

Here in Québec, we don't care too much about l'Académie française, but we do try to slow the anglicisation of our own North American french (quite an interesting linguistic phenomena, by the way), so instead of «courrier électronique» (which no French people from France use, by the way), we use courriel, and it is really used :-)

[@Allison_B.]

French person here : So, even though they are officially called "Immortels", members of the Académie Française are just that, "Membres de l'Académie Française", no one introduces themselves as "Immortel" (that'd be super weird). And it's right that we don't use "courrier électronique" (old people do...), but to be fair to "mot-dièse", the actual french noun for # has always been "dièse". That's just how we say "hashtag"...

[@NetAndyCz]

Great to see French person here... So I was given hard time by my professor and by textbooks, how French uses two negatives before and after the verb all the time to mean just one negative, usually the "ne...pas" (but based on the context it can be "ne...rien", "ne...jamais" and so on)... And few months ago I started watching Netflix and I cannot remember anyone using the "ne". Everyone just goes "C'est pas vrais" and "je vois personne" so, what is the deal with the "ne" Is it completely ignored in everyday speech?

[@aBetterMove]

It's funny that you mention only old people for email because our French classes at the turn of the millennium involved courriel as though it were standard. xD

[@theravenmonarch9441]

@@NetAndyCz "Ne [...] pas" is the 'proper' use, that's what you'd use in a description in a book, in a newspaper, in a formal letter, etc. It's not used much in informal speech and I could see it disappearing from the language if it wasn't so prescriptivist.

[@Bloobz]

Dièse and Hash are not the same thing. # This is a hash, in French it's a "Croisillions" ♯ This is a sharp, in French it's a "dièse" Those are different things.

[@ТомасАндерсон-в1е]

has any crazy person ever killed an "Immortel" to see if they can die?

[@DarleneLesmana]

i love how matt's laugh is still so distinctive in a crowd

[@armadillito]

This clip of Tom Scott saying "I say: Bollocks!" should be savoured for all time

[@TomScottGo]

I made a thing! There's nothing wrong with saying "10 Items or Less", and here's why. Pedants, prepare to be annoyed.

[@thenorup]

Actually I think it's the other way around, fewer is wrong, less is correct. Let me explain: Try writing that sentence out in maths(since we are talking about the numbers): Items < 10 This is pronounced "Items less than 10". LESS! So clearly less is a perfectly good way to describe numbers.

[@Auriflamme]

thenorup Well both less and few come from Old English (laes and feawa). Both being fairly interchangeable - laes being a comparative of little/small and feawa having the meaning of little/small. The development of a difference between them is mostly convention. Really though, there is no grammatical 'need' for few/fewer in modern English. The only situation I can think of which argues for the continued use of few is in constructions such as: 'the few'. But in any case we use fewer when we are talking about individual items, meanwhile less indicates a lower quantity of something which is viewed as an undifferentiated mass.

[@Aud1073cH]

'Less' and 'fewer' are not interchangable. 'Fewer' is used with quantifiable objects. 'Less' is a comparitive for measures without quantity. So we would say "10 items or fewer" where 'fewer' is comparing items of quatity, or we could say "10 or less items"; where 'less' is comparing the number 10 and numbers less than 10.

[@fred321cba]

Aud1073cH The word "more" can be used for both countable and uncountable nouns, so why can't "less" be used in the same way?

[@mrmimeisfunny]

Aud1073cH did you even watch the video?

[@themongoosedog]

Language changes, sure--but that doesn't mean people have to give up having a say in precisely what changes, or how. If I think the distinction between "less" and "fewer" is worthwhile, why shouldn't I make the case for preserving it? If people listen and agree, fantastic; if they don't, that's fine too. I think there's an important distinction between thinking some things are worth keeping, and getting angry about any little change. :P

[@AlecBrady]

Can you say that bit towards the end ("...but if popular opinion changes, so will they, and so should you.") without being prescriptivist about it?

[@rainmaker6261]

Lol well played

[@Creepsington]

i'll try, despite not having a very good understanding of this all. "...but if popular opinion changes, so will they, and it would benefit if you did the same"

[@gayvideos3808]

Yes you can, that's not prescriptivism

[@LittleBlacksheep1995]

Late to the party but I don't think 5 years ago "should" meant the same as "must" instead of "be suggested to"

[@AlecBrady]

@@LittleBlacksheep1995 00:16 to 00:29 would suggest otherwise.

[@AngelValis]

You know, I never noticed the incorrectness of "10 items or less" until you pointed it out. To me, it doesn't sound wrong in that context, but when someone says something like "...less apples...," then it sounds very wrong. I like rules, I think they're fun, or at the very least interesting, but when I was teaching English, I did try to point out that even though the book says you should say X, that Y sounds much more natural, or that in some situations they shouldn't worry too much about which word they use in certain situations. FYI, I believe, in Japan, they still teach using "whom" when even I'll admit that one is on the fast track to word-heaven.

[@SteveSilverActor]

I'm an English tutor mostly for learners of English, and I feel the best way to describe usage such as "Me and Jack went to the store" is that it is colloquial, or non-standard, and that it is marked as "uneducated" speech. However, "Me went to the store" is an error, since native speakers don't say that (besides Cookie Monster).

[@artugert]

That is incorrect. There are native speakers in certain regions that do say that.

[@wisteriapetalsinthebreeze]

What of, "Me, I went to the store"?

[@SteveSilverActor]

@@artugert That's interesting. I wasn't aware of that. In what regions?

[@SteveSilverActor]

@wisteriapetalsinthebreeze Yes, I feel that is short for, "As for me, I went to the store," or, "Me? I went to the store."

[@artugert]

@@SteveSilverActor Jamaica

[@ajuk1]

I need to weigh fewer.

[@demerzel3798]

ajuk1 I need to weigh fewer pounds. ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)

[@HansPeter-qg2vc]

+ajuk1 I guess there are people who just want to see the world burn.

[@leedaniel2002]

+Christoph Michelbach yes there are

[@HansPeter-qg2vc]

Watch The World Burn Thanks for the update.

[@playingforbritain]

I couldn't give fewer of a damn!

[@mojosbigsticks]

The essence of language is communication.

[@leafbelly]

If you work as an editor, it's difficult not to be prescriptivist. The obvious main point of editing is to remove errors, but there's also another point of editing: consistency. If you allow one writer to use "fewer" in the same instance where another writer uses "less," (probably not the best example) it can be confusing to the reader, and especially, to other editors and writers.

[@artugert]

As far as I know,, if you work as an editor for a company, that company probably has their own "style guide", or uses an established style guide. So it's not just difficult, but impossible. You have no choice but to edit based on the company's standard.

[@killerbug05]

Me still trying to figure what's supposedly wrong with "10 items or less"

[@Anonymous-df8it]

Things like water use less because you don't have a million waters; you have a million molecules of water. Things like item use fewer because you don't have a million units of item; you have a million items.

[@ChrisHanel]

I like the unintended result of the new KZbin interface lighting up the like button when Tom says "You're not going to like this video"

[@flywheelshyster]

oh my god someone is doing a fun video on descriptivist and prescriptivist. SO AWESOME!

[@feliscorax]

The biggest argument in favour of prescriptivism is grammatical: the grammatical rules of English have been worked out to such a degree as to ensure they are as logical, coherent, and consistent as it is possible for a language to be, at least in British English. Vocabulary is negotiable so long as it does not fundamentally alter the understood meaning of a sentence, but once you start messing with the grammatical foundations, well, the whole shoddy edifice is in danger of collapsing. A particular pet peeve is “I could care less” in American English*, where “I couldn’t care less” is clearly the correct usage for reasons of logic and clarity, i.e., if you “could” care less, it means you actually do “care”, at least “a bit”. That abbreviated negation is all-important to the meaning of the sentence. Similarly, the adjective versus adverb difference in “You did good / You did well”, whilst comprehensible, clearly becomes problematic when the example is “How are you?” > “I’m good”, where “good” could describe all manner of things *except* the speaker’s well-being. People who deny that these word categories have specific meaning and are functionally distinct do tend, in my experience, to also be the same people who quite simply haven’t a clue about how to use them correctly. But, on the whole, achieving the functional goal of communicated meaning does supersede some of these other considerations at a certain point, so I tend not to view descriptivism vs prescriptivism as an either/or so much as an and/also: there’s a time and a place for both and any English teacher, whether of native speakers or ESL students really ought to have a sensitivity for when one is required and the other not (and vice versa). * I’m a bit leery about their spelling conventions, too, because etymology tells us much about the history of a word and its possible meaning(s), even revealing something about changes to that meaning over time. Phonetic spelling is, in my view, tantamount to dumbing down the English language to the point where a considerable portion of its linguistic richness is denuded in favour of a simplified pedagogy.

[@Xakana]

OMG, as someone who's been changing my views on language rapidly to become descriptivist, I am in love with your videos.

[@bradleymorgan8223]

I like that render of the world map you use, it's so atypical it kind of hurts my brain, but i like it and i can't tell why

[@RadioactivFly]

Oxford commas though... I cringe every time I read a list without them.

[@herranton]

RadioactivFly I am the complete opposite. I loathe, detest, despise, dislike and abhor them.

[@RadioactivFly]

herranton1979 The lack of an oxford comma can really screw up your sentence though: "I invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin." "I invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin." Both sentences intend to say that the strippers were invited in addition to JFK and Stalin. However, the second sentence can easily be read to state that the strippers ARE JFK and Stalin. Also, this: www.grammarly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/1386725553.jpg.CROP_.promovar-medium2-273x410.jpg Oxford commas are *_grammatically necessary._*

[@herranton]

RadioactivFly But what if I want the strippers to be JFK and Stalin? luilz They aren't grammatically necessary. A rewording of the sentience would fix the ambiguity and not look stupid. "I invited JFK, Stalin and the strippers."

[@RadioactivFly]

herranton1979 But that's the beauty of Oxford commas. You don't need to bend over backwards to make your sentence coherent. And if you want the strippers to be JFK and Stalin, just leave out the Oxford comma! As for your example, "Stalin and the strippers" sounds like a band or something. It still feels awkward.

[@lovingboarding]

+RadioactivFly There is an ambiguity, OH MY GOD, WE HAVE TO ADD THIS COMMA TO REMOVE THIS PARTICULAR AMBIGUITY!!!! Boo-hoo, stop whining about ambiguities in languages. They're completely normal and shouldn't be fixed by all means. Also, just change the word order and the problem is solved. "I invited JFK, Stalin and the strippers." No need for this conjunction defiling thing. And also you are creating new ambiguities: "Please bring Bob, a DJ and a puppy." "Please bring Bob, a DJ, and a puppy." The second sentence could mean that Bob is a DJ and not that a DJ is a third seperate entity. So you are creating new problems by removing old ones. Unnecessary. Oxford commas are *_not_* *_grammatically_* *_necessary_*.

[@sogwatchman]

I literally just saw an animated gif on reddit about this yesterday... Thank you for clarifying the point.

[@greenredblue]

I hate prescriptivist thinking because 1) there's an endless amount of irregularity in almost any given natural language and every prescriptivist has their own special opinion about how much should be ignored, codified, and replaced, 2) it fantasizes that the massive decentralized concurrent mutation of natural language can be adequately maintained by a single authority, and 3) just how much profound conceit must you have to assert that, though you've only been around for a fraction of your language's existence and only have the personal mental capacity for a fraction of its working parts, somehow your, and only your, ideas for the _entire domain_ must be correct.

[@ReactionVideoDotAvi]

Descriptivists are just as guilty of #1, Tom even says in the video that just because he's a descriptivist he doesn't think you can spell things however you want, which is EXACTLY what he should think if he's just accepting however people communicate.

[@julientripon1092]

BRILLIANT !!!!!! It's hard to be descriptive when you speak french. I often say : "Hum... interesting" when I hear an "odd" phrase. The person often gets it as a reproach, as I find it actually interesting for the evolution of the language. And their are some people sho stil say : "This word don't exists, it's not in the dictonnary" even though it's used everyday... Sad.

[@Tobberz]

I still have a problem with less vs fewer. It is like much vs many. I have much apples? I have many milk? That doesn't make sense. Same thing with I have fewer apples, I have less milk. I don't think we should so lightly abandon words in English.

[@purewaterruler]

Tobberz language evolves. deal with it.

[@NightDoge]

+purewaterruler Artificial constraints are also part of evolution. There's nothing to deal.

[@deborahhanna6640]

If you know the reason why red Is different from pink, but someone else argues that there is no difference, you consider them color-blind. It means they are missing the finer points of nuance. If you cannot even admit there is pink- you will be lost in a world of mauve, violet, carnation, fuchsia, etc. Arguing that they are 'all red' might be true, in a sense. But it also means that you are the one who is losing an entire palette of variation! SHADES OF MEANING!

[@noirekuroraigami2270]

​@@deborahhanna6640lol but red is just a set wavelength of light....nothing more and nothing less

[@GearDownForWhat]

I said less in one of my videos, got here from a comment from a polite subscriber. Thanks for shutting those grammar police down!

[@CaptHollister]

The pretty word "courriel", which is identical in construction to email (electronic mail=courrier électronique) has entered into common use in French-speaking parts of the world, except in France where they still think anglicization of their language is chic.

[@lsedge7280]

While obviously part of the 'success' (or dissemination) of English is down to colonialism, I wonder if the fact that English doesn't have official prescriptivist institutes/academies saying "this is the way" may have contributed to it beating out other languages and becoming the dominant one?

[@jasonreed7522]

It probably helps that we actually pronounce our letters, like if i give you a brand new English word and a brand new French word (new to you) and asked you to wing it then an English native speaker would be more likely to know what you were trying to say. We also do lots of weird things that make it harder to learn in terms of grammar rules that are wrong more than not. But ultimately its because the USA and British Empire were/are so globally dominant for so long that learning English is a great way to advance your business interests, and if everyone learns it for this reason then even 2 people who aren't native English speakers can compromise by using the common language. French is technically the international language but this is a legacy from when France was the dominant power.

[@yakobsoulstorm5187]

I think also the fact that English is a Germanic language helps, since those languages tend to have less excess letters.

[@IanClem1]

I love that you keep your mistakes in. Hilarious!

[@h0td0gwater]

Why didn't I see this 6 years ago at the height of my grammar police era eeeeek

[@daniellbondad6670]

0:50 Ballocks. A British insult.

[@santiagoverdugo6972]

Agreed. Language is a tool; it is a mean and not an end. As long as the receiver is correctly understanding what is being communicated, language is doing its job. Besides, pedants of old would be apalled at what current pedants consider to be 'proper' language, so it really is a fruitless discussion.

[@denelson83]

0:31 - Should have dropped in a big letter "E" made of iron.

[@MegaLoler9000]

"As long as the recipient pays attention to the message and isn't trying to decypher what you're saying, then talk however the hell you want." I squee'd for centuries when you said that because I feel the same way. :D

[@hypoaktivnaovca]

The obvious issue being when someone uses less instead of fewer in a sentence where the meaning changes, but still makes sense in context. Mostly an issue with written language, of course, you can usually tell when speaking by various paralinguistic elements of the conversation. Good thing we mostly speak face to face these days and don't really write to each other much.

[@DeFaulty101]

Greetings from Canada, 2024! I've worked and studied in franco spaces, and we 100% use the academy's word for e-mails, "courrier electronique!" The word "courrier" (pronounced sort of like coo-ree-ay) has always been the French word for 'mail,' so adding "electronique" on the tail end of it just makes it 'electronic mail,' which is where we get 'e-mail' from, making it something of a direct translation. Also, the term "courrier electronique" typically gets shortened to "courriel" (pronounced sort of like coo-ree-el); a portmanteau. Which is fitting, because "portmanteau" is a French-derrived word, literally meaning "wears coat." With that being the case, I guess I'd better toss out a retroactive "no pun intended" for that part of my comment where I described the type of word as "fitting."

[@spucclah8039]

Wow, thank you for the comment!

[@kopissimooo]

But what about when they changed the definition of "literally"?

[@iAmTheSquidThing]

I would argue that was a bad move because it does make communication less clear.

[@thenedoriiistewardofrondog6965]

+Andy Brice You can't fight it. Muahahahahahaha

[@itchykami]

It is literally the worst, and it's going nucular, irregardless of opinion.

[@sukumvit]

+itchykami I wish I could insure that people whom afflict their bad grammar on the rest of us would realize how aggravating it is. It's fortuitous for you I'm not there, or I would of given you a peace of my mind!

[@itchykami]

I herd you're idea's and their definately good.

[@TonyTheYouTuba]

One example happening now is the word “software”. Traditionally a mass noun like the example in this video “knowledge”, I frequently see people saying “softwares” or “a software” now. Bugs the hell out of me, but I think it might be here to stay.

[@Intoxicatious]

I used to get uppity about language until I realized that the point of language is to communicate large ideas with few words. If everyone else uses a word incorrectly, then over time they ARE using it correctly and I am wrong. Spoken language is meant to be quick, light, and easy to say and hear. However, I still hold to the fact that written language should very much be scrutinized. Dictionaries don't tell us which words to use; They let us know which words other people are using.

[@briank8571]

However, I still hold to the fact that written language should very much be scrutinized. Really? I found 4 errors in your paragraph. LOL loser!!!!!

[@Intoxicatious]

Brian K Damn, I lost? Which are the four errors?

[@briank8571]

Intoxicatious Well, there's uh.... And then I saw... Gotta go bye!

[@raizin4908]

Brian K _"If everyone else uses a word incorrectly, then over time they ARE using it correctly"_ This reminds me a lot of words like "awful" that had a more logical meaning back in the old days. For example, awful meant inspiring wonder, fantastic meant existing only in imagination, artificial used to mean artfully/skillfully constructed, and manufactured (from manufactus, a Latin compound of the words manus and facio - hand and make) originally meant made by hand. Of course no one (or rather a negligible minority) would want to change those words back now, just so they can better conform with their etymological relatives.

[@roberthamm8387]

Intoxicatious Written language is a tool just like spoken language. It should be scrutinized only as little or as much as necessary to MAKE IT USABLE. NOT a scholar's pet project.

[@rattywoof5259]

Loved the suppository sound/action!

[@hagfish8590]

Watching this right after the French government banned the word 'e-sport'

[@Релёкс84]

Acedémie =/= government, and also literally nobody cares.

[@zygmuntthecacaokakistocrat6589]

Yes there is. Grammar reflects logic. "Less" means you haven't time to count how many less than 10 there are. "Fewer" than 10 means you've had a bit of a look at your quantity. Talking about "less" people in "smaller amounts" treats people like sugar, sand, or dust. "Fewer" than a certain number makes sense in this case, and in many cases.

[@neilisbored2177]

You went a bit nucular there *Prepares shield*

[@DemetriLoizou]

Tom Scott has just explicitly told me "go and do one". I'm not sure how I feel about that...

[@Chris_Cross]

I know.

[@Anintora]

the sarcasm and sass in the listing of the sources is brilliant

[@themanwiththepan]

"As much as a doctor prescribes a suppository" I take offence.

[@paulamarina04]

having an official academy does make it handy when determining which words are valid while playing scrabble

[@Cobalt985]

Doesn't Scrabble have their own dictionary? I have an old one sitting in my house somewhere.

[@paulamarina04]

@@Cobalt985 thats the case for english but im not sure if theres a spanish equivalent. also that dictionary does leave out a lot of otherwise perfectly valid words (mainly swears/insults)

[@RichardASalisbury1]

I'm on both sides of this argument. I wrote in a comment on another video by this guy that I had a teacher my senior year of high school who taught us grammar and made us true believers because he knew all the reasons for the grammatical rules; i.e. what possible misinterpretation correct usage avoids; there were a few even then that I felt were unnecessary, and still do, such as avoiding "this is due to that," even though the phrase in question used to mean "is owed to." As a tech writer later on I had to know thoroughly the things I learned from that teacher. But I've no use for the pedants who, in that career, told me I must never start a sentence with a conjunction. Bollocks! [And note, in sentence preceding last one {a nonsentence according to some as it has no verb}, my misuse of a prepositional phrase modifying the wrong pronoun. I'll bet everyone knew what I meant. Still, as somewhat of a purist, I would correct {yes, correct!} it thus: "... who, when I was in that career, told me ...."] And on the other side I am starting to let go of the distinction between "who" and "whom"--though in formal writing I'll continue to use "whom" for the objective case--because I can detect no ambiguity of meaning in either oral or written English when "who" is used where we need the objective case; apparently, as English has continued to evolve, more and more the functions and meanings of words become clear enough in whatever context unavoidably accompanies "who[m]." But some mistakes I see truly are, because they open the door to possible confusion even if they don't invariably do so. Lately I see way too many instances of using " 's " instead of just "s" to make a plural. And misplacing the modifier "only"--putting it always at the start of a series of noun[-phrases] that it might be meant to modify, instead of as close as possible to the one actually meant--annoys me because often I have to work out, taking into account a whole lot of context, what the noun is that the writer intended "only" to modify. [Again, note my rude-crude usage "a whole lot of"--used, as I just did, in a way far removed from the origin of the phrase--that most of us, I daresay, rarely notice, because it works: no misunderstanding.] One final bugbear: almost no one knows how to use hyphens, especially to link together two or more nouns in a phrase of 3 or more: in which the first two-or-more function as an adjective modifying the final noun in the string. Used to run into this as a tech writer in the computer biz--4, 5, 6, even 7 nouns in a row, no hyphens, meaning--what? Maybe the software engineer knew; I could sometimes work it out, often had to ask. What's worse then tech-speak? Well, maybe lawyer-speak. Rules still have a place. I think I agree with 1 or 2 commenters who said we need them because our language is changing too fast. Frankly, so is almost everything else. It's a bit insane.

[@SSM24_]

It's... bizarre to see Tom be this emotive. I'm so used to his style from more recent videos that this really caught me off guard.

[@ItsSansom]

2:17 "Language changes regularly and often" I see what you did there

[@Whanhee]

Courrier electronique is actually used pretty often in French but more frequently as the shortened "couriel".

[@Liggliluff]

(1:40) Well, the French language usage in France, that is.

[@AdamHolland-Adz]

This is my favorite playlist by you...... and I can't talk about it to anyone cause they find it boring... :(

[@deadlightdotnet]

Someone making a communication mistake while talking about the importance of clarity in communication is absolutely irony; and quite a funny example too. It's a subversion of the expectation of Tom to be clear while stating the importance of clarity; subversion of expectation is the core of irony. I know how fun it is to spot misuse of irony but Alanis Morissette is probably an easier place to start :P

[@emilyscloset2648]

Dammit, Tom, the enormity of the situation cannot be understated. Look it up.

[@Nulono]

2:33 "and so should you" Is that... prescriptivism I smell?

[@JukeboxTheGhoul]

Not really, it's a suggestion.

[@Lavb_b]

Must =/ should

[@unstoppableboy9859]

@@Lavb_b For me, it is. Also that was prescriptist.

[@polygontower]

@@unstoppableboy9859 "Should" and "must" almost never carry the same meanings. Sure, they are similar sometimes but not the same. cf. "You should do that" and "You must do that" *There's probably a page about this in CGEL by H&P somewhere, but I can't be bothered.

[@nobunaga240]

A lot of prescriptive stuff might be pedantry or snobbery in the face of language change but maybe we all have our pet foibles. unfortunately mine does happen to be less/fewer and number/amount! I shout at the TV when a reporter talks about the “amount of people in the crowd “ . If you count it use number, if you measure it use amount etc.

[@Lutranereis]

And yet, in one of your Citation Needed episodes, you cringed at the pronunciation of "nuke-you-lar."

[@joshuahadams]

It's not a nuculus, it's a nucleus.

[@Lutranereis]

***** To those individuals, they pronounce "nuculus" the same way they pronounce "nucular." Either way, the point get across, so why worry about it?

[@joshuahadams]

Well, "nuculus" is great for day-to-day usage. When someone in charge of education, like a Biology, Physics, or Chemistry teacher talks about cellular or atomic "nuculei", that's when it really gets to me.

[@hairyneil]

Lutranereis There's a difference between saying something is wrong, and finding it cringey. I'd put aluminum in there too. I know what you mean, Aluminium just sounds nicer.

[@a2rhombus2]

hairyneil Except that with that example, aluminum is spelled aluminium in Britain. Nucleus and nuclear are spelled the same everywhere (in english).

[@tand0r]

My philosophy is that language is a tool of the speakers, and it will change at their colective will. That is to say, the way we speak should not be defined by a dictionary, but the other way around, because language is constantly evolving and changing with the rest of the world. If there comes a point where a new word is used by most people in a nation that shares a language, and everyone gets it, then the dictionary should accomodate that word, for it is now part of the language.

[@notexact]

I'll have you know the French Canadian came up with a better solution for the word email, and l'Académie française actually endorsed it! It's "courriel", which is a portmanteau of "courrier" (which just means mail in general) and "électronique" (electronic); the two words you used in your video. That's virtually identical to our "email" being a mashup of "electronic mail". Courriel has become widely adopted by French speakers. So maybe there's still hope for the Academy, and the French language! :)

[@silpheedTandy]

i used to be very much on the descriptivist side, relishing the change of language. it's only when i started learning a new language that i began to understand that using standard grammar makes it MUCH easier for people who are learning that language to understand you!

[@herrfriberger5]

+silpheedTandy But capital letters at the beginning of senctences? No?

[@silpheedTandy]

+Sven Ekeberg i'm still very much someone who likes to be very casual in not following the rules :P . i just have an appreciation for standard grammar and common vocabulary now that i'm learning a second language, that i didn't have before :)

[@okaro6595]

+silpheedTandy Gammar is very deep in the language. Individual word change much faster than the grammar, especially when new c´concepts are developed.

[@Cobalt985]

@@herrfriberger5 nah

[@SodAlmighty]

Having watched this video to the end, I feel compelled to strongly disagree.

[@JDoors]

Thank God I'm not the only one who believes making your point .... IS the point. How much of "correct" grammar was incorrect at one time? All of it?

[@jb888888888]

People need to be fewer bothered by this sort of thing.

[@msamour]

Well, I should have seen this video years ago. I was educated in the French prescrictive method, and I am trying really hard to adapt to the English loosey goosey comventions. It's not easy!

[@tired1923]

if you think the French academy sucks for people in France let me introduce you to how much of an inconvenience it is to us in Québec. the Immortals may be reactionary pompous old men who need a century before even considering changing anything, but at least they base their decisions on the language spoken in France. we just get updates like X thing you say is no longer accepted because it "fell out of use" and this word you pronounce as it is written, a rarity in french, now has a new spelling based on how it's said in France.

[@Pedro_Ferrandi]

I wish i find Tom Scott videos when i was in middle school, I could have got so many good grades back then.

[@kylianwieringa5862]

0:58 I legitimately thought there was a musquito

[@emilygrae]

I have never seen a sign at a grocers or any other store that said "10 items or fewer". I have, however, seen a sign that said something like, "10 items or less" in EVERY large grocery store that I have ever been in. I'm 44, and I've been all over North America, so that's a lot of grocery stores. Something else I've never ever seen is a person at the grocery store that didn't know what "10 items or less" meant. Never. Not ever. Not once. Grammatically correct of not, the general population has accepted it's use. Otherwise there would have been a huge uproar about it and it would have been changed long ago. The sign is meant to communicate a concept. The sign is read and understood. Communication has occurred. Like it or not, in that case at least, "10 items or less" is now grammatically correct. Because that's how we roll in English.

[@judithannehorner9923]

Well, there is a (chain) grocery store in Vista, CA, that has a sign reading "15 items or fewer."

[@MrDannyDetail]

There has been a slight uproar in the UK, and the majority of UK supermarkets, including all of the big four, now display '10 items or fewer' signs, if for no other reason than to stop people writing to them about it all the time.

[@notdaveschannel9843]

I'd generally agree re with Tom here but I get annoyed by the misuse of "disinterested" and "begs the question" because the older (sorry can't resist it!) correct usages were useful and difficult to replace.

[@goonerbeagunner4life]

1) Indifferent 2) Circular reasoning That good enough for you?

[@gayvideos3808]

I didnt know there was more than one usage of either of those?

[@lazaraleksandrov2808]

I believe that "a suppository" combined with that face, tone and sound effect was a really obscure way of saying "shove it up"

[@XxjazzperxX]

So to the important question: Is anime an artstyle or just cartoons from Japan?

[@HansPeter-qg2vc]

+XxjazzperxX Neither. Animes are weird cartoons from Japan which are disputed to be cartoons by the people who like them.

[@BlackGateofMordor]

+XxjazzperxX From Japan. When you have things like Kaiba, Dragonball, and Panty & Stocking all being called 'anime' in English, the word is clearly used to represent animated shows from Japan. This becomes especially clear when you realise that the Avatar cartoon series (American) is not called anime, and neither are Chinese animated series, which sometimes are stealing animation from anime. However, in this case 'from Japan' isn't even that clear. To make the conundrum especially weird, a lot of anime are actually animated in Korea - a funny case when the Avatar series was as well. I would define from Japan as 'in Japanese, broadcast in Japan'. The way anime is used in English is up to how English speakers are using it, and there's a large amount of backlash whenever someone suggests that Avatar the Last Airbender is anime.

[@melvin8d671]

+Jazzpah Anime is Japanese cartoons. RWBY is not an anime, it is in the style of an anime.

[@AdobadoFantastico]

Unfortunately, it's both. With the difference hopefully being implied through context. This happened before with the word cartoon, itself. Strictly speaking, cartooning means to draw with lines(primarily contours). It's a technique that was named in the Renaissance. Nowadays many "cartoons" don't even have lines, this would be an utterly unrecognizable usage to a Renaissance artist. When early animators were working, they didn't all cartoon. But cartooning was generally used because of efficiency. Cartooning was previously mostly used in editorial cartoons, which had similar demands of speed and efficiency. But it was only through its applied usage in editorials and animation that it became synonymous with an idea of style. Originally, it was just a technique. As an animator, this is frustrating, since it makes some conversations ambiguous and can cause confusion. But such is life!

[@J4Seriously]

Literally its just cartoons.

[@mathgeniuszach]

I feel that as long as you follow some understandable standard, you can talk however you want. Consistency and being understood are more important than following someone else's made up standard. Me (as an American) and my friend from halfway across the world use two different spellings but we are consistent and understand each other, so we don't bother each other about spellings.

[@timmmmmm274]

1:29 Never in my life have I ever, once, heard the word 'kookaburra'

[@deborahhanna6640]

A specific breed of Australian bird I think.

[@gayvideos3808]

Really?? Where are you from. I've never even been to australia and I've heard and seen it at least a few times in passing

[@Mercure250]

In French, we got "Autant pour moi", which means that we admit that we were wrong (like "my bad")...but the "right" way to write it is "Au temps pour moi" (pronounced the same way). However, there's no real good reason for using one or another (a french youtuber specialised in languages, Linguisticae, made a video on this topic, and he concluded that both are acceptable). This youtuber also said that "entretemps" (meanwhile) should be written "entretant", because it was like this before, and also because other romance languages like spanish or italian write it this way (entretanto in spanish and protanto in italian). Who decided that they should be respectively written "Au temps pour moi" and "entretemps"? Académie Française! Oh, and another thing : In French, we use "ne" and "pas" for negation...For example, "Je ne mange pas" for "I don't eat", or "Ne pas courir" for "Do not run" (roughly). But in common language, "ne" is not really used, we use only "pas" in most of situations. (Je mange pas, for example)...however, the Académie Française thinks this is a mistake...geez...even a book that won the "Prix Goncourt" didn't have any "ne" inside...

[@xway2]

Because "their" and "they're" are two different things. Let's use your example. If someone wrote a comment saying "A batt flew by my head yesterday!", though referring to the animal, a resonable response might be "wow, you could have died" not "wow, that's cool." My point is this: In speech, there's no difference, so no one will think you mean the other thing. In writing, your sentence might take on an entirely different meaning, thus confusing the reader.

[@Vitorruy1]

That's not true at all, I never got those two confused when people misspell, never. It's a fact that if you can tell things apart in speech you can tell them apart in writing, because you read things based on the knowledge you got from listening.

[@polygontower]

@@Vitorruy1 From a descriptive point of view, misspellings are just that. They're wrong grammatically, but still might be perfectly understandable, because the majority of people agree this is incorrect. For split infinitives, ending with prepositions, something something relative clauses, the majority of people don't bat an eye so there's nothing wrong with it then!

[@LilyRoseGames]

"To which I say: Bollocks" Made me laugh way more than it should, maybe I'm just not used to Tom swearing.

[@LilyRoseGames]

Oh it gets better, so much of him being rude to people, I love it!