Seemingly trivial things that intrigue you
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I completely agreed, but you get upset about misuse of "can" and other things I have probably forgotten.
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The more I learn about grammar, the fewer I know.
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How very BR to ignore the point and go off on a tangent. Would have went viral had I inserted a graph. 😂
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
To whom are you referring. Who is not intrigued?
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Cake is just weakness entering the body0 -
There's a difference between using 'rules' for 'humour' (however terrible/non-existent) and conventions that carry subtlety of meaning. My 'humour' tends to be to encourage people to think about their use of language: the fact that I rail against Pointless Pedantry doesn't mean I don't care about thinking about language and how the misuse of words can affect communication.
I've probably mentioned before that generally on social media, as long as I can understand people well enough, I won't 'correct' people. I will pick up people who pull the pedantry trigger though, if they've incorrectly told someone off.
But when it comes to pupils, whose education I am a part of, my job is to make them think. And with friends, my job is to wind them up.
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I'm currently listening to a debate on this on the radio.
The thing that struck me with regard to less/fewer jobs is that I remember exactly the same arguments being made when computers were entering the mainstream, robotics took over car manufacturing and when the internet was emerging. I dare say the same arguments were made at the advent of the seed drill and Arkwright's spinning jenny but ultimately I am not aware that the net result was less/fewer jobs over a significant timescale.
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
If you are to be consistent with yourself Brian, you need to establish a trend. Is the a trend towards distinguishing between the terms (based on what sounds right, which is how English grammar works), or towards interchangeable use of the words?
Answering this would be a perfect task for AI.
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There are less/fewer jobs in those specific industries though. How many typists are there these days.
People have moved on to other jobs (call centres?). Trouble with A.I. is that it can probably do those jobs too.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Noting that emojis are not my strong point, but WakeMalcolm followed his post with some sort of yellow face which I think indicated humour.
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Am about to set off from home2 to home1, so will have plenty of time in transit to come back to the question, should AI not have answered it. Hoping to get home about 2am, so might need amusement en route.
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Well the spinning jenny certainly did result in that argument and was a major target of the original luddites.
The point I heard the Government spokesman make this morning was that AI is going to happen whether we, as a country, accept it or not so we are better off being involved than getting left behind. There's a lot of focus on the negatives of AI (that I share) but there are definitely benefits too. In terms of employment my main concern is that a lot of the stuff it can't really help with is the low paid stuff which struggles for recruitment.
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Anyway, what intrigued me was the government's mixed message, not A.I.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
I think the bigger issue is the misunderstanding of what the benefits of AI are.
For example, it's actually better than humans at some forms of diagnosis but that doesn't mean less/fewer doctors are needed.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
The word used was "quicker", not "better".
If A.I. is doing a doctor's work then is the doctor (or 1 in ten random number) required?
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
To be more specific, the analysis of medical imaging by AI is more accurate than human analysis, and I think it was also more sensitive.
It can't discuss the findings with the patient or recommend treatments. It's a tool, not a replacement medic.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Yeah but that is not what the government is claiming hence my intrigue about their messaging.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
If the analysis is currently done by a human remote from the patient, and that task is to be done faster and more accurately by using AI, then that
a) is an improvement and
b) requires fewer employees to do the same work.
Whether or not that results in fewer people employed is a different question, but the person who does that task won't still be doing the same thing.
When people talk about improving efficiency in public services, surely all of this is exactly what they should be aiming for.
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Building the server farms for the generative AI companies to make their AI slop probably isn't a long term benefit to anyone and shouldn't be in this list.
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Ultimately you can do more with the same total input. That's a rather different emphasis from the text PB quoted.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Especially as it still can't reliably produce a recognisable hand.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Nah!
Less applies to things that have a quantity value whereas fewer applies to things that have a numerical value - you don't have fewer money in the same way you don't have less pound coins.
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Can you explain the difference between a quantity of things and a number of things?
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That's one less thing to worry about.
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'What sounds right' is very dependent on what 'rules' someone has been taught. Many of these 'rules' are nothing but someone's taste, with no underlying logic in linguistic terms. And very often they are 'rules' that are only recent inventions. (Several of them are stupid ones invented by people who thought that English should behave like Latin.)
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Yup. But people tend to say what sounds right, which then becomes common usage, no?
Not being down with the yoof, I've no idea whether more, less or fewer people use less or fewer the way I do, than used to be the case.
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Maybe we need a thread 'trivial things that you don't give a toss about'.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
This is that thread.
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It's an interesting balance between 'correct' (however you define that) and 'anything goes'. Linguists observe and describe, on the whole, but I don't think that should prevent them from offering opinions about changes that they aren't keen on (especially if they can explain what might be lost in clarity or imagery).
tl;dr There are no rules in language, but a highly complex system of conventions to make human communication efficient and infinitely adaptable to circumstances and the need to exchange ideas.
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