Cheers gogledd!

I thought long and hard about posting it expecting a lot of "pedantic" abuse. But it was just winding me up so much (more than being insulted ) I think it is the Aspy in me

It actually reminds me of a story about a Scottish soldier in WWII who as peed of with people saying "English" when they meant "British". When they took over a place in France they came accross a poster left for them by the retreating Germans "English go to Hell!". He went up to it and replaced "English" with "British".


I must check out Lynne Truss

Yep get you re infer. What about "literally". That really really annoys me. "I was literally bursting with pride"
No you weren't!!!

I also hate people using the word "community" when they just mean group. As I said before if every word starts to mean the same as every other word, soon nothing will have any meaning at all.

I was caught out mysefl once telling a friend that I was so jealous of him. "No dear, you are envious of me"

LOL at your husband.

Sorry - but 500,000 votes is a collective amount (i.e. the size of Leon's victory!) so it is perfectly correct to use less than:

Rule: Use fewer to describe countable things. Use less to describe collective amounts, and degree. These terms are not interchangeable.

I have to say that there seem to be rather a lot of pedantic individuals on this particular thread.

The only definite fact they don't seem to be willing to accept is the result last Saturday!

What has ANY of this got to do with the point being made that votes cast do not equate to voters casting them?

The number of votes cast for any act does not equate to the number of voters casting those votes.

The fact that there was nothing stopping people posting multiple votes supports the point as opposed to detracting from it!!

votes are countable . You have said there were 500,000.

ah yes the old pedantic is thrown out as the defence against inaccuracy

I will assume you mean me as one of the pedants and thus your comment about us not willing to accept the result is untrue. Or is that pedantry to point that out

XFactor is an open contest, it is not the reserve of professionally trained singers in which to compete for a recording contract, but Rhydian knew this when he entered the contest. What he didn't realise is that winning was not a given. He didn't reckon on the general public voting against him or that an untrained raw talent would walk away with something he felt was a right of passage.

Rhydian fans are just getting desperate now.

We have no way of knowing if more people voted for Leon or Rhydian - and frankly nor do you. The best guide however is the total vote.

The likelihood is that Leon had more people voting for him because

(a)he won by a clear 10%
(b) he won by a clear 500,000 to 700,000 votes

Sorry, but you're wrong. By your definition (what the hell are 'countable things', anyway?!), 'five items or less' at supermarket checkouts is correct - and it simply isn't. It's always 'fewer than' when followed by a number, apart from distances (less than 20 miles), periods of time (less than 2 weeks) or sums of money (less than ten pounds). Pedant I may be, but being insulting doesn't make you correct and me incorrect. So ner

Interesting post.
Thanks, I never knew that.

It's nice to learn something new. I for one would be guilty of misunderstanding this term.

As I kind of felt that maybe Rhydian winning could possibly be a poisoned chalice, and actually said so on the forum. So therefore somebody could suggest that it might be 'sour grapes' on my part, and now you've explained the meaning they would probably be correct as well.

Well I'll stick with my view - but you are entitled to yours. This is the point I have been trying to make to certain people on this forum!

http://www.llrx.com/columns/grammar2.htm

In the end grammar is a matter of interpretation - like whether you prefer Leon or Rhydian.

I am not the least bit desparate, not about the result anyway.



ABSOLUTLEY that is the point I have been trying to make


I never pretended I did as a) that would be stupid and b) would contradict the point I am trying to make.

But I don't understand where your point is going or what the purpose of it is.

Leon got 500,000+ more votes and won the X factor - the End!

Cheers
It would make more sence but it would only be true if you didn't actually believe that it was a poison chalice and were only saying so. In the fable the fox didn't actually beleive that the grapes were sour. It was just face saving.

I am disappointed that he didn't win, but actually quite releived that he didn't have to have the winners song as his first. However I won't be a dog in the manger () and hope that Leon's single flops

Yes he got more votes and yes he won, The point is that we don't know who had more people voting for him or not, despite people saying that they do.

and if votes aren't countable, how in God's name did they count them??
In fact if votes aren't countable, Leon didn't win. no-one can!

Do you want to reopen every reality TV vote ever for the X factor, Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing etc - including Shayne Ward's 1% victory over Andy in 2005 (the level of multiple voting for Shayne would almost certainly have been higher). Did more people vote for Ray last year than Leona because most of his fans were older and only voted once.

You only seem to see this as an issue because you weren't happy with the result last Saturday - multiple voting is a reality of reality TV!

no! I will just challange people ho say that they won because more people voted for them rather than more votes were cast for them



Maybe, maybe not I don't know



I have no idea


well I can't help how things seem to you,


I know and that reality means that people win who get the most votes and not necessarily who has the most people voting for them.

If you think I am saying that Leon had less people voting for him than Leon, that would be in your own head not mine.

Did you actually read my original post which started you off heading down this particular cul de sac:

"Rather a lot of people must think Leon can sing and has star quality because he got at least 500,000 more votes than Rhydian last Saturday."

Put simply Leon got in the region of 3.5m votes last Saturday so a lot of people must like him.

We'll just agree to disagree as on the basis of your last sentence you seem to have completely lost it now!

Ahem your orinonal post did not send me down any cul de sac, on the particular issue about the vote versus people, YOU responded to MY comment where I had specifially highlighted someone else pointing out that votes do not equal people.


My last sentence as an appempt to try and work out what you thought I was saying as you seem to be arguing agaisnt something I didn' t say.

So it actually is true then that only around 10% of people who actually vote for someone bother to buy their single

A typical Leon-fan twist! Did anyone say multiple votes were not allowed? No.

The point is that people should be careful when they equate those 500,000 more votes with 500,000 more people voting for Leon than Rhydian when saying he is more popular.

Ah, that's where you got your 'Rule' from.... Well, by this person's definition, you're still wrong I'm afraid. 500,000 votes isn't a collective amount, it's a countable thing. A collective amount (according to Ms Grammar Goddess) is something like grains of sand on a beach, hence you can have less of them. But if you were talking about under 5000,000 grains of sand on that beach, you'd refer to 'fewer than 500,000' - because of my quoted definiton of number always using 'fewer' apart from distance, time and money; a definition which, incidentally, is also used in my edition of Fowler's Modern Language Usage, a reference book I'm much more inclined to consult than a random internet source...

If there's one thing grammar isn't, it's a matter of interpretation. It's true to say that existing 'rules' can change when the 'wrong' version passes into the vernacular - an example that springs to mind is the split infinitive, which I was taught to strenuously avoid but is now endemic - but it's really not on to pass off one's own incorrect usage as simply a different view or matter of interpretation.

By the way, people have been paid (not by me, I should add!) to advise me on grammar and syntax for over 20 years, so I'm fairly sure of my ground here!

Maybe the grapes of victory really are sour? Rhydian fans who say he's better off not winning may have a point - he would have ended up with a terrible song and video and been despised by many as another X Factor winner. But for Leon I think this is the best chance he has got - he should make a bit of money out of it if he has any sense and doesn't spend it all thinking more is round the corner. Frankly I don't see him having a career that outlives the memory of the show - even talented reality show winners tend to disappear without trace!

Why is that relevant? Neelia (we salute thee!) and the others were saying that it wasn't 500,000 people who voted, it was 500,000 posts! We weren't saying "Leon's fans are eeeeevil because they multiple voted", or anything else that might possibly warrant that sarcastic comment at the top!

Perhaps if Leon's fans stopped being hypocritical, by telling us not to make anti-Leon threads before making anti-Rhydian fan threads, the X Factor will die, we'll all be happy and we can all go and eat squirrel burgers and have a merry Christmas.

It's not relevant but, hey, neither are you!

Cheers SoapBubbles - I didn't quite understand where the response came from either.

Well being a Leon fan who dares to respond to anti Leon threads you get used to being abused on this board. But what the hell

As I keep noting there is a very subtle inference that while Leon got more votes last Saturday apparently it was down to two people in Scotland voting 1.75million times and that all of Rhydian's votes were cast individually. On this line of argument even though Leon won really Rhydian did because supposedly more people voted for him as individuals even though there is no evidence of this.

This was not an anti-Leon thread. As far as I know Leon hasn't been going arround talking about sour grapes.

There has been more than a sublte inference that more people were voting for Leon, people have been stating it as fact. Pointing out the truth that we don't know what the voter figures are is NOT arguing that Rhydian had more voters.

I've just realised that the last comment on one of my replies is wring and should of course read

"If you think I am saying that Leon had less people voting for him than Rhydian, that would be in your own head not mine. "