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stillnosheep · Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 2068 Location: eslcafe

And there was me thinking that 'children' was a countable noun...

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:44 pm Post subject:

As in "One children, two children?" Wink

Lighten up- I've just checked the corpus at my uni, and found that less is more commonly used with children than fewer. HArd to swallow, but in the samples I could check...

To respond to MadameJ

MO39 · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:25 am Post subject:

Marcoregano · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 872 Location: Hong Kong

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

One child, two children. It's countable and deserves "fewer".

Swan says in informal speech, people accept "less" (his example is "less problems"). Grates on my nerves, though.

johnslat · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:01 am Post subject:

Dear Glenski,

"Swan says in informal speech, people accept "less" . . ."

but I hope less and less people are doing so.

It's those darn irregular plurals that seem to cause the most problems in this respect.

Regards,
John

MO39 · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:17 am Post subject:

Marcoregano · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 872 Location: Hong Kong

OK, I stand corrected on 'less'! Oddly enough, and perhaps this bears out what Swan is saying, when I wrote the OP yesterday I initially used 'fewer' but went back and changed it to 'less', thinking that 'fewer' sounded a bit pedantic. A quick Google ceratinly indicates that 'less children' is in very common usage.

Any chance of returning to the OP?

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:32 am Post subject:

I thought we'd been through this corpus thing before (MO39!). Assembling corpora of speech, especially capturing and transcribing spontaneous natural unscripted speech, is a difficult, time-consuming process, but it is worth it because it will capture what the grammar is really like rather than what people think it should be like (and it has been shown by linguists such as Labov that there is little consensus among different people regarding what they judge to be acceptable/grammatical or not so). Unfortunately however the proportion of genuine speech in corpora or subcorpora is still quite scant compared to that of edited writing.

Sorry if that again seemed a diversion, Marc(o), but the reasons/conclusions for not having kids surely (to me, obviously) come down ultimately to primarily not being able to afford to have kids, and as I said, it's not so much a case of "missing the boat" as there not having been a boat to catch (or if there were, it's capsizing as we speak!). If there had been more attractive opportunities and that little bit more support back in the UK over a decade ago, perhaps I'd've stayed and worked at things, but there wasn't (or to me at least, didn't seem to be), so I left to partake of low(er) pay (but also taxes!) and less(er) security in "infinitely" more agreeable (that is, less "disagreeable", and certainly less violent) surroundings. People who stayed in my green and pleasantly unenviable land probably got happy-slapped (sometimes aka divorced) and repossessed etc etc, and to get ahead in EFL, the Middle East has for long been a Mecca.

Put it another way, as Confucius says, an early grave may await the pensioner who dines on cat food, but he may just outlive the one who strived harder to afford caviar.

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:05 pm Post subject:

I disagree that it has to do with being unable to afford to have kids.

I don't actually have any kids, but suppose I could afford to. (Probably would wind up with fewer, or less, dinners out in restaurants.)

But many of my colleagues have kids, or are planning to. It looks possible on a teachers salary, in the places I've lived.

It would be a stretch, and require some adjustments. But from what I've heard, that's the case most everyplace for most everybody.

Best,
Justin

PS- Let's do a different thread about corpus/corpora thingies.

basiltherat · Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 952

naturegirl321 · Joined: 04 May 2003 Posts: 9041 Location: home sweet home

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:07 pm Post subject:

For what it's worth; many places in the world, schooling is the biggest expense involved in having kiddies. (I suppose that if it's not schooling, it'll be healthcare.)

One thing my partner and I have talked about is (if we have'em) one of us going to work at an international school that offers a tuition break to teachers. This has quite a few benefits, as it arranges education, makes sure that one parent is on roughly the same schedule as the kid, and makes sure we know about our kid's education.

Give it a shot NG...

Best,
justin

naturegirl321 · Joined: 04 May 2003 Posts: 9041 Location: home sweet home

The city we're looking at does have an intl school, but only pays 900 usd a month, so another reason to get out of teaching and into property. Just teach for fun, part time.