Re: evolving languages

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> > I'm just wondering Christophe: were you trying to pun there, or have you
> > misunderstood the expression 'more-or-less'? It essentially means that
> > they'll follow them.
>
> Really? I've never seen the expression used in this sense. I've always seen it
> meaning "some more, some less".
>
>  For example, 'students who perform well in the VCE
> > more-or-less always go on to tertiary studies'
>
> Which sounds to me like nonsense, as the expression "more or less" doesn't fit
> with the adverb "always" behind. Are you sure it's the most common meaning of
> that expression? I've never seen it anywhere, and it's the first time somebody
> comments on my use of it.
Yes, it is a standard usage of "more or less".  A quick google shows usages
like these:

        100 more or less common terms of ballet defined
                (i.e. moderately common)
        History is more or less bunk [nonsense]
                (i.e. almost all of it is)
        The U.S. has more or less lagged behind Europe in wireless telecom
                (i.e. for all practical purposes)


OTOH, a sentence like:

        Do you feel more or less physically secure since September 11,2001?

does not invoke this idiom, and as such has contrastive stress when spoken
aloud (rising pitch on "more", falling on "less").

In the standard language, though not always informally, "less" is only
applied to measurables, and "fewer" to countables.  "More or fewer" never has
the idiomatic sense of "more or less".

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