a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by _refugee_
_refugee_  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Congressional Deal Reached on Fast-Track Authority for Obama on Trade Pact

cough

Number of words, dear, not amount.





thenewgreen  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's pretty amazing how much this comment annoyed the shit out of me today. It's not the correction of the grammar, but the use of the word "dear." Pretty patronizing, I'm not a fan.

Good luck with the cough though.

Meriadoc  ·  3638 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh, bless your little heart.

Sorry, that's just the one that grinds me the most. The most patronizing phrase in the English language.

_refugee_  ·  3636 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I didn't intend for my comment to come off that way, or to bother you so much. I'm sorry that it did.

thenewgreen  ·  3635 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thank you for the apology. I'm glad it wasn't intentional.

I'm very much looking forward to receiving your book of poems.

_refugee_  ·  3635 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You should have it tomorrow - Wednesday at the latest. :)

rob05c  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think you all mean the number of markup tips.

veen  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wait - what's the difference?

mk  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's considered most correct to use 'amount' for non-countable nouns, like 'soup'. Just as 'how much' is used rather than 'how many'.

You are given a certain amount of soup and use a certain number of words. Likewise: How much soup did you eat? How many words did you write?

veen  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I knew about much/many and few/little, but I didn't think number/amount was a similar distinction.

thenewgreen  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I didn't either. Thanks mk, that was actually helpful.

user-inactivated  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

i wrote three soups and ate a can of words

user-inactivated  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Looks like he wasn't being thoughtful enough.

galen  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  

Muted!

I shall wear it as a badge of honor. Quatrarius

Quatrarius  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This'll work out just fine.

thenewgreen  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, hopefully you got that the original comment from me was to point out how arbitrary word counts are. A single word reply can have just as much impact as a longer one. I don't know about you, but I have not once looked at that word count

user-inactivated  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That was my goal as well, actually, haha.

mk  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I look at it. But you can toggle it off if you don't want to.

thenewgreen  ·  3639 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't even realize it's there. No need to toggle it off, it's just non-existant in my use of the site.