My sister recently informed me that I have too many hills on which I intend to die

[conuly]

She's quite right, of course, and one day I'll write out a short and not at all comprehensive list of them for your amusement.

Today, though, I'll restrict myself to two, and I'll explain why when I'm done.

1. Data is a mass noun and not a count noun.

2. The "less or fewer" distinction is not a rule of traditional grammar, and whoever told you that lied to you. It's a made up zombie rule (technical term!) literally invented by some dude in the 1700s and ignored by careful, educated writers and speakers ever since.

If you're wondering why I picked those two, here's why:

If you combine them, you run the risk of referring to something or other having fewer data, and that's just... that's just wrong. It's just wrong. I'm sorry, I can't be descriptivist about this, I think it was in The New Yorker or something and it's wrong. It's all wrong.

You can't say "fewer data" and shame on you if you do it anyway.

Comments

[peristaltor]

Eh, I think it would be harder for me to refer to a human as an "it" that it would to get the wrong pronoun, plural or not. Some habits were beaten into us as youngsters.

At one point, calling someone an "it" was a grievous insult.

[hudebnik]

Yes, when I was a child, calling someone "it" was an insult. So was calling a boy "she" or (I presume) calling a girl "he", because schoolchildren are so good at finding ways to insult one another.

Calling a singular person "they" was never an insult, it merely demonstrated the speaker's stupidity or lack of education. Which is why I still have a hard time doing it even when intelligent, well-educated people around me are doing so.

[peristaltor]

Calling a singular person "they" was never an insult, it merely demonstrated the speaker's stupidity or lack of education.

Exactly!