I've been under a bit of stress lately, and when that happens I become pedantic, which is why, after months without this kind of post, suddenly there are two only a few days apart.
The phrase that is annoying me today is 'longer hours', as in, 'People are being asked to work longer hours', 'Longer hours are bad for your health', 'Recession means longer hours at work', et cetera. This is absurd. An hour is an hour, it can't be longer or shorter. People may be being asked to work more hours. Many hours at work may be bad for your health, but each hour remains the same, neither longer nor shorter.
There, that's off my chest - should I mention the issue of 'cheaper prices'. No, leave it alone - you don't want to look like an all-round obsessive. Or is it too late already?
I imagine you'd be equally irritated by the similar expression which occurs here: http://thegrindstone.com/work-life-balance/women-work-longer-days-more-on-vacation-and-get-paid-less-so-why-are-they-happier-than-men-165/.
ReplyDeleteDisappointing that you didn't use the opportunity to vent spleen over the lamentable modern confusion over when to say 'fewer' as opposed to 'less'.
Don't get me started
DeleteYou said it! Still a little bit of pedantry never goes astray
ReplyDelete!
There is not enough of it about, so I am over-compensating.
DeleteAnd yet there is poetry in the phrase 'longer hours', as there is also in e.g. 'time dragged on' and 'time stood still'. But I'm guessing that in German you'd say (more straightforwardly) that you work 'more hours', which is maybe why their industries function so efficiently.
ReplyDeleteAnything's fine in a subjective context - an account of emotional reaction to an experience - but I don't like poetry in what are supposed to be factual news reports. Es ist hasslich (my attempt to suggest I have an irrepressibly German approach to life [if only I could function efficiently, though])
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