Thinking back now, my 7th grade English teacher had, I'm pretty sure, a borderline dysfunctional obsession with the increasing acceptance in public life (i.e. on television, on street signs, in advertising or in retail stores, for example) of grammatical errors or improper English phraseology. A particular thorn for him was the "Nine items or less" sign in grocery stores, which should really read, "Nine items or fewer." He offered us extra credit if we could, at any time during the school year, produce evidence of these linguistic transgressions. You know what? He may have been a little crazy about this, but his offer of extra credit did open my eyes to how pervasive this really was in the real world. And that was 25 years ago.
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