Less or fewer? Number or amount?

Do you care if you get this right? I’ll assume you do; if not, we’ll catch you next time.

Do you feel a little queasy saying “We found fewer negative responses than positive responses”? Think it might sound a little funny, so you fall back on “less responses”? Or maybe you’ve always thought that “few” couldn’t possibly have an “-er” at the end.

And how about conveniently using “amount” to describe things that are counted when, in fact, they are to be numbered? Doesn’t “amount” cover just about everything. Uh uh.

Preserve or Repeal - just say it correctly!

With just few minutes of research you can learn the history of this institution and quickly understand why Democrats want to repeal it and Republicans want to preserve it. What might give you trouble, though, is how to pronounce it. If you, like me, haven't discussed this strange institution of our democracy since eighth grade civics class (because there wasn't a lot about the electoral college to discuss until recently), you might have forgotten the root of the word: "elect." And I think every American has got that word down pat, right? If we can pronounce "elect," we can all pronounce "electoral."

He might! He might!

I’ve gone searching for a word, and instead I found a great candidate for President of the United States! And we’ve still got 24 hours left before we vote. Talk about serendipity!

Do you remember that I asked you in early September whether you thought we “might” have lost the word “might”? It seemed everyone around me was misusing the word “may” to mean possibility or likelihood. Losing a simple, functional word from our language is tantamount to losing a species from our earth. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and there’s really no substitute for it. The fewer words we have at our disposal for clear, correct, finely nuanced communication, the less our communication will be clear, correct and nuanced. Simply, we humans communicate with words. We can’t afford to lose our words any more than we can blissfully lose our teeth or our hair or our children.