[tcptomato]

What would be the right way to correct him?

[sushibowl]

I think the right way is, don't. This kind of "mistake" can not really result in any misunderstanding so there is not really any benefit gained from a correction. Correcting serves only to disrupt the flow of the conversation.

[prmoustache]

It benefits me, the non native english speaker passing by in the comments and who learnt something today.

[Salgat]

This is a tech forum for discussing technology. This isn't the place for that, and honestly I'd prefer not to have to sift through a bunch of pedantic grammar nitpicking on here.

[edgyquant]

What exactly did you learn? That some people try to enforce made up rules on native speakers and then feel superior for it?

[_a_a_a_]

I'm a native English speaker. I don't personally like corrections like this, and I would never criticise anyone for using the 'wrong' term. There is too much convention in English which isn't useful because it bleeds into pedantry and I think this is such a case. Using either word gets the job done cleanly, and at the bottom that's all that counts.

[prmoustache]

The problem is you take this as a critic, which is not.

[jpsouth]

This feels so wrong to post in this thread, but I’m going to bite. It’s ‘critique’, I believe you mean.

I’m sorry.

Edit: as someone who can’t even figure out the markdown to italicise right now, maybe I should have kept my nose out!

[prmoustache]

See! I am learning even more because of this.

[jakderrida]

> you take this as a critic, which is not.

Interesting. What is it?

[prmoustache]

Well I was about to say correction but I think I got caught by a false cognate so it was indeed a critique but you weren't criticizing the previous post if my understanding of those words is correct.

[jzb]

OTOH, what I see is misuse of words like this ultimately ends with “well, lots of people use it like this, so now it’s correct.”

(See, for example, “literally,” or “comprise,” or “hopefully.”)

[prmoustache]

Yes but I think a soft resistance is still necessary in a society towards language errors otherwise the language becomes too fluid to be usable and understandable. Where to draw the line between information and rudeness is the difficult part.

You don't need to jail or slap someone in the face for using less instead of fewer but you don't want gynecologist to mean oncologist and cancer to mean gonorrhea from one week to another otherwise nobody knows what we are talking about.

[_a_a_a_]

Agreed, but is less vs fewer worth anything, really?

[closewith]

All the "incorrect" uses of those words are fine and are a part of the language. Outside of prescriptivism, that's just the use of the language, not misuse.

[jakderrida]

Even "literally"? While my original comment was just a Stannis joke, I really think you need to rethink how useless it is to have a word that means both "not figuratively" and "figuratively" (by common usage) at the same time. If it means both, we literally have no further use for it in the English language because it modifies nothing.

Why not have the word "no" mean "yes" and "no" while we're at it?

[edgyquant]

Yes it is correct. “Standard” English took one dialect and attempted it enforce it on hundreds of others. It’s authoritarian and not how language works