grammarsluts Q'n'F'n'A

Q. What's the difference between me and I, really?

A. The difference is NOT that I is a fancier version of me—a painfully common mistake for which I blame that wily ol' predicate nominative: we know that the actor affecting a British accent on the television show would say, "It is I," so we figure the one pronoun's just inherently more "educated" than the other.  Hence "Come with John and I," or "Between you and I..."  For the record, Julian Casablancas, it's between you and me.

     No, the difference between me and I is that the one is an object, the other a subject.  Incidentally, this is also the difference between whom and who (another duo that many think can be broken down into the Fancy and Not-as-Fancy categories).  Who and whom are particularly tricky because even people who know the difference in theory can get screwed up by the words' roles in various subordinate clauses and by, again, our mischievous friend the predicate nominative...

     My advice: when in doubt, just use who and me.  Like a stopped clock, you'll be right at least sometimes, and when you're wrong you'll just sound as if you made a mistake, not as if you're a pretentious ignoramus.

Q. Do I feel bad or do I feel badly?

A. Well, have you suffered nerve damage?  Are you on anæsthetic drugs?  If not, you probably feel bad.  "I feel badly" is a mistake for which I'm inclined to blame the adjective well, as in "I feel well" (English–English translation: "I feel healthy").  People hear the word well and figure it's an adverb.

     Here's the deal, people.  The word well means in a good way when it's an adverb and healthy when it's an adjective—just as the word ill means sick when it's an adjective and in a bad way when it's an adverb (as in ill-conceived).

     I'm sorry if you feel bad about that, but at least you can feel.

Q. What's the difference between less and fewer?

A. The difference between less and fewer is pretty much the same as the difference between much and many.  Can you count the thing or things in question?  (Better question: could GOD?)  Then take some away and you've got fewer.  Otherwise, it's less.  How much milk is there?  This much.  Oops, I drank some: now there's less.  How many cookies are there?  This many.  Oops, I ate some: now there are fewer.

     And don't give me any of that "two pints of milk" baloney: then the question is how many pints, not how much milk.  The reason I bring up the G-man is that some people make the mistake of saying, "Well, you can't count the grains of sand on the beach, so it must be less," when the question isn't whether you can count them but whether they're theoretically countable.  (Of course, as with milk, if you were asking how much sand instead of how many grains of sand, you'd be rockin' it less-style.)  If GOD stratched a couple trillion atoms out of existence with a gynormous divine thumbnail, there would be fewer atoms in the universe than there were before, not less.

     Advanced: time, money, distance, and other such wacky shit—neither whole nor divisible into obviously or easily agreed-upon units of measurement (e.g., with time, are we talking centuries, hours, seconds, nanoseconds...?)—you actually have less of, not fewer: less than $10 (because the question is how much it costs, how much money, not how many dollars), less than 15 minutes (because the question is how long, how much time, not how many minutes), less than 300 yards (because...well, you get it).

I know that some people do not find grammar interesting.  For them I offer this video of a baby laughing in slow-motion: