Fewer vs. less

A visual and narrative guide to the different use cases of the words "fewer" and "less" in English, complete with a moral for nitpicky speakers:
Go check out Wonderella, it's funny. (And the mouseover text provides a second punchline to many strips!)


This post's theme word is screed, "a long, monotonous harangue." Your grammar screed bores me. I wish there were less of it, and that you had fewer grammar scruples.

Wherein 'gauche' and 'wink' are cognates

Gauche, from gauche (French), from gauchir (Middle French), from gaucher (Old French), from welkan (Frankish), from *wankjan (Proto-Germanic). Proto-Indo-European root *weng. A variant of *wankjan, of course, is *wenkanan (also Proto-Germanic), whence wink.

Compare wanken (Old High German) with vakka (Old Norse).

Thanks, J.!


This post's theme word is antanaclasis, "the repetition of a word in different senses." Having experienced this derivation, now I am interested in tracing the changing meaning of the word!