44-71, Game Thoughts

by Jeff Sullivan on Aug 11, 2010 5:50 PM PDT in Seattle Mariners Game Recaps

I love a lot of things about weekday matinees. I love being able to watch the Mariners over breakfast or lunch. I love being able to watch the Mariners in a state of mental clarity I no longer possess come nine or ten o'clock. I love that they're different, and that just by being unusual they're easier to enjoy. Additionally, of course, I love that they're over in plenty of time for me to actually make plans for the evening guilt-free if I want.

And another thing I love about certain day games like this one is that, as soon as they're over, I can pretend they never happened.

This game was totally stupid so here are bullet points in 25 words or less.

~~Googling "25 words or less" yields 88,400 results. Googling "25 words or fewer" yields 71,600 results. The world is as stupid as this game.~~ (Ed. note: swing and a miss)

Without that slider, Luke French absolutely has to throw strikes to have any success. He didn't throw strikes today, and so he sucked.

Daren Brown doesn't get what this team is like quite yet, but today's game gave him a taste. Get ready, Daren Brown.

The Mariner highlight of the game was Franklin Gutierrez slamming into the wall making a catch on the first play, which tells you everything.

ooh I'm so mad at you

When Felix Hernandez misses bats, it's because of Felix. When Luke French misses bats, it's because of the hitter.

Losing to Dallas Braden is like getting shat on by the loud annoying crow in the tree by your bedroom.

The Mariners are now on pace for 521 runs. Last time they were on a lower pace: May 8th (508).

Matt Tuiasosopo is a left fielder like I am a leather saddle with stirrups from Gladiator.

Based on his picks and double plays, Casey Kotchman will retire to a career as an infield coach.

Kurt Suzuki is the perfect A, in that he's kind of good and easy to ignore.

A game with today's Mariner players makes me so ready for the season to end.

Off to Cleveland, for a series that will in no way be a waste of everyone's time.

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Comments

Perfect.

“Losing to Dallas Braden is like getting shat on by the loud annoying crow in the tree by your bedroom.”

God I hate birds that wake me up at ungodly hours.

Milton Bradley apologist

by sanford_and_son on Aug 11, 2010 6:00 PM PDT reply actions

Losing to Dallas Braden does not affect me much

Getting shit-ted on by a crow would make me murderous towards all crows for an indeterminate period. But hey, that’s me.

by lemonverbena on Aug 11, 2010 6:20 PM PDT up reply actions

Haha. Murder. Crows.

Hard work never killed nobody, but I won't take my chances.

by JAH on Aug 11, 2010 9:08 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

I wouldn't change it so quickly

There is a fantastic debate in the comments to that Copyediting blog post, and I think the commenter Paul gets the upper hand.

by david h on Aug 12, 2010 6:57 AM PDT up reply actions

I disagree on that

Not only do I think Paul is incorrect in his interpretation, but I tend to figure that if a form is disputed, err on the side with fewer syllables. :)

by The Ancient Mariner on Aug 12, 2010 7:27 AM PDT up reply actions

(Note as an illustration

that there, the proper choice is “fewer” rather than “less” because “syllables” is plural, not because syllables are continuous . . .)

by The Ancient Mariner on Aug 12, 2010 7:28 AM PDT up reply actions

He gets the upper hand because he's correct

He correctly (and dismissively) identifies the inconsistencies in the original poster’s reasoning. His summation of the situation is spot-on: people use ‘less’ to apply to discrete quantities primarily because the distinction means little to them. It’s another example of the simplifying trend in our language over time. And it’s sure to accelerate in the age of Twitter and chatspeak.

by Torjazz on Aug 12, 2010 8:26 AM PDT up reply actions

But how will blog comment flame wars affect this issue?

More less or less less?

I do think Paul’s right (I’ve never heard the benchmark rule before and the writer did a pretty piss-poor job of convincing me it really exists) but the whole argument reminded me of a conversation with a friend. He recently spent a year in Taiwan studying Mandarin, and when I asked him about the language he said he liked that “they’re not obsessed with time,” meaning they don’t have a million conjugations for “go, goes, will go, went” etc. Really, what’s the point of having the words less and fewer? Are we incapable of differentiating between countable and continuous without them? Obviously not, or how would we know which word was appropriate! The English language is definitely simplifying, but I wonder if that’s because its complexity is beginning to piss its speakers off.

by chaney on Aug 12, 2010 10:58 AM PDT up reply actions

That there can be a debate whether "less" or "fewer" is appropriate in the phrase "25 words or less" is the salient point,

and thus, no one is stupid.

I agree with the original author that “10 items” in the phrase “10 items or less” is a boundary, threshold, point of demarcation, whatever, and not 10 individual items of which their can be fewer. Paul’s argument is not that “less” is used with discrete quantities, in fact quite the opposite, that “less” is used with continuous quantities that can be infinitely broken down like time or temperature. So that in the case of “25 words or …” it would be “25 words or fewer” because words are whole and not continuous like kelvin or miles per hour.

And like most arguments about prescriptive grammar, it’s naval gazing and irrelevant to most of the world and serves only to hamper that which it thinks it’s accomplishing: cognition of language.

by John Morgan on Aug 12, 2010 12:08 PM PDT up reply actions

I was pretty sure this was true

But didn’t have an article like that to back up my thinking. I was going to write a lengthy comment of my opinions on the matter, but instead spent the better part of a couple hours wondering if it was okay to correct a correction on grammar or if I’d come across as a douche.

by RunningFool on Aug 11, 2010 8:34 PM PDT up reply actions