The original English language?
Sure. And that's the same as modern English, is it? Language evolves. It so happens to evolved, in this case, to include a rule which dictates the correct usage of one word vs another in the case of quantitative nouns.
I would like to add that the current edition of the Merriam Webster, which you have quoted as a source in your favour, actually says that 'fewer refers to number among things that are counted, and less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured.' IE, it proves my original point, not yours. It does go on to say that in colloquial usage either are acceptable, but only one is technically correct.

I would rather be technically correct, and a pedant, than a mis-educated, barely literate cretin like the vast majority of users of the English language, thank you.
(berk, Tue 12 Jun 2012, 11:42, 1 reply, 12 years ago)

You seem to be getting a little cross.
What I have said is that people have always used "less" as a counting noun and that a rule saying that isn't acceptable only came about a couple of hundred years ago as a result of a few people deciding they didn't like it. I would also point out that "colloquial" usage means, in this context, everybody that speaks the language today and throughout the entire history of the language and that the people who insist on "fewer" are in the minority now and have been throughout the whole of the recorded history of this argument, which is I'll remind you, a fraction of the life of the English language.

Yes, the original language is largely the same as modern English with a few extra words here and lexical drifts there.

Finally, "technically" correct refers to a few people deciding there ought to be a rule. "Less" has *always* been used as a counting noun. That, to me, makes it perfectly acceptable.

It absolutely hasn't evolved to include this rule. That rule was instituted by linguists artificially and has been mostly ignored. That is not an evolution.
( Kroney, Tue 12 Jun 2012, 11:51, Reply)

Original english is 'largely' the same as modern english?
So, that quote you used from Alfred the Great up there, then - you understood every word? Balls.
(berk, Tue 12 Jun 2012, 11:57, Reply)

are you seriously telling me
you don't recognise the word "less" in that sentence? Especially since you have the translation below.

But what I meant is that modern usage of words is largely the same as the Old English usage of the Old English forms of the same words and in largely the same structure.
( Kroney, Tue 12 Jun 2012, 11:59, Reply)