English is Stupid, Part 47

Random thoughts on English (and a little bit of math)

I think the word "commence" should mean the ending of something, rather than the beginning. It sounds better that way.

Ex. When the games commence, we'll have dinner.

It really bothers me when someone says "less" when they mean "fewer".

Ex. There will be less people at the party than expected.
It reminds me of an English teacher who gave a visual of half a person. I imagine that every time I hear someone say "less people".

I think that quotation marks should be inside the period, rather than at the end.
"You're making too much noise." should be, "You're making too much noise". The sentence should be contained within the quotation marks, like a neat little package.

It really bothers me when people say "that" when they mean "who".

Ex. The person that came late got locked out.
Good for him he got locked out. He should use better English.

I hate the expression, "All things are not created equal". Shouldn't it be, "Not all things are created equal"?

When I was a kid and we were learning how to make tally marks, I got all my answers wrong. I thought that you made 5 little lines, and then put one line across to hold them all together that didn't count. Instead of writing groups of 5, I kept writing groups of 6.

I still think you should make 5 lines and one line to hold them all together.

And that's my grumble about English and Math for the day. Lesson commenced.