教你正确用（十五）.docVIP

教你正确用（十五） 　　Katherine Hepburn said “if you follow all the rules,you miss all the fun.” There are more rules in the English language than we can follow;that’s why we constantly make mistakes when we speak and write in English. We make mistakes simply because we do not follow the rules,or we do not know about the rules. We seldom have fun when making mistakes;most of the time,we are embarrassed. But,when enough people have made the same mistakes,the rule is often overturned,and “the majority rules”. Today,let’s chat about mistakes people make so frequently that they have become rules. 　　 　　Less and Few 　　 　　Some years ago in the town I live,a TV reporter noticed that there was an embarrassing grammatical mistake on the sign over a checkout lane in a big super?鄄market. The sign said: “5 Items or Less.” It means you can save time by going through this express checkout lane if you don’t have a lot of things to pay for. “Do we know our grammar anymore?”He asked on TV. “How can you say 5 Items Less? It’s 5 Items Fewer!” Sure enough,the manager of the super?鄄market replaced the sign with “5 Items or Fewer.” Not long after,people started to realize that there was something wrong with the sign. It didn’t look right,nor did it sound right! “5 Items or Fewer”―who would ever say something like that?! They complained to the manager. You know what? The manager replaced the sign again with “5 Items or Less.” The sign has been there ever since. 　　 　　Data and datum (数据) 　　 　　When I first got in graduate school,my professor told us that the difference between an undergraduate (大学生) and a graduate student (研究生) is that the undergraduate student would say “data is” and a graduate student would say “data are”. Without having been trained in doing research,undergraduate students would not know that “data”is the plural form of “datum.” So,“data are” but “datum is.” We followed this rule closely and often made fun of those undergrads who couldn’t tell the difference between data an