English anyone

 

                                       English, anyone?

Reading today’s newspaper reminds me of something English teachers of mine, not sure which, (could have been more than one or two) reminded their classes from time to time.  The line in my AikenStandard read: “Aiken High School had 7 face-to-face student cases and less than 5 employee cases.”  Similar items were reported for all area schools with the same questionable wording (questionable to me and my English teachers, for sure!)

 

What would have been considered proper when I passed through Aiken High School would have been “Aiken High School had 7 face-to-face student cases and fewer than 5 employee cases.” 

 

The reason given by my English teachers was when you are discussing something that may be counted (in this case the number of employee cases) the correct wording would be greater than or fewer than.  If, though, your reference was to something that required a quantity designation, something that was not countable, like an amount of milk, the correct designation would be more than (amount) and less than (amount.)

 

Don’t ask me why the difference, I just remember there was a difference. 

 

I guess memories like this might explain why my College, Georgia Tech, allowed me to exempt all their English courses.  My thinking here is that they thought their courses would not add to my mastery of the subject, something that my English grades and my SAT numbers supported.  Fortunately, those exempted courses were added into my grade point ratio as “A’s,” something that allowed me to stay in the college a bit longer than I did, initially, since I seem to have majored in Wesley Foundation much more than the Chemical Engineering that was officially my designation, and my overall grade point ratio would have reflected this quite quickly with a note from the regents to me saying I needed to find something else to do with my time than attend their classes.

 

It took a stint in the Air Force, to include Vietnam (anyone remember TET of ’68?  I certainly do,) to bring me to my academic senses allowing me to do Deans List work on return to my Academic leanings.  11 years was a bit long to get that BS, most will admit, but that was what it took me.

 

Which says a good bit about my stick-to-itive inclinations if not much about my academic abilities.  The diploma is at the end of our hallway above a small bookcase.  Each to his own, I guess, or chaqun a son gout, as Mrs. Butler would have said.

 

(One day, hopefully, I will try to find an alphabet to use that includes those diacritical markings.  Just not today!)