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Attention Tesla.com Web Master!
- Thread starter Dameon
- Start date
HankLloydRight
No Roads
This is unacceptable for an intelligent website like tesla.com...
For those that are grammatically challenged, the subject (seconds) is plural.
I tried posting on the official Tesla forums, but the two buttons to Save and Preview are inactive on my browser for some reason.
Are you trying to say that little refers to seconds and should be few instead?
If so, is it not the acceleration that is little, as opposed to the number of seconds?
Maybe I picked the wrong week to stop huffing paint but I'm having a hard time understanding what's wrong.
Dan Detweiler
Active Member
Nope, you just need another hit.
Dan
Good stuff. My consciousness will talk to you all next week then.
Dan Detweiler
Active Member
Well, down here in the good old boy capital of the world it would have read...This is unacceptable for an intelligent website like tesla.com...
For those that are grammatically challenged, the subject (seconds) is plural.
I tried posting on the official Tesla forums, but the two buttons to Save and Preview are inactive on my browser for some reason.
"Gits ya from here to over yonder fast...damn fast."
So...I guess it could be worse.
Dan
HankLloydRight
No Roads
Glad I'm not alone.
The only thing I can possibly think of is the OP "sees" the last word as 'second' and thinks it should be 'seconds', but the rest of us see 'seconds' and looks right to us.
It's just a phrase, not a complete sentence...but wouldn't "acceleration" be the subject? Wouldn't "seconds" be an indirect object?This is unacceptable for an intelligent website like tesla.com...
For those that are grammatically challenged, the subject (seconds) is plural.
Yeah, that was why I was left wondering if I was having a stroke at the time. There is an argument around little vs few, where few should be used when there is a quantitative measure and little(or less) when it is qualitative, i.e. less strong or less agile. But in instances like Tesla's example, 2.5s isn't really quantitative rather it is used as a singular declaration so little makes more sense. Temperature and money work the same way usually. Think of how odd it sounds if one were to say "The high today will be as few as 40 degrees F". We almost always say as little as because "40 degrees" doesn't really represent the sum of 40 individual degrees in our statement, it is really more of a singular item and that item would be "the high".
Edit: @MorrisonHiker says it better than me in the post above.
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HankLloydRight
No Roads
My wife who is a professional writer and self proclaimed grammer witch also can't find any problem with it. She did mention the 'few/little' thing, but thinks either way works.
Super_Popular
Well-Known Member
This is unacceptable for an intelligent website like tesla.com...
For those that are grammatically challenged, the subject (seconds) is plural.
I tried posting on the official Tesla forums, but the two buttons to Save and Preview are inactive on my browser for some reason.
You have way to much time on your hands. And why are you posting this here, shouldn't you be complaining directly to Tesla?
I could accept that seconds is the indirect subject/object, but the measurement is the rub. It should be fewer seconds. Like the finger on chalkboard signs at the grocery store... "This line is for 10 items or less".
It isn't a singular declaration. Seconds indicate multiple or plural. Less than 1 second. Fewer than 2.5 seconds.
There are fewer than 20 people in this thread.
This isn't a debate about what "sounds" correct, it is about what is truly grammatically correct.
I have a lot of pet peeves in my old age.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
But 'fewer than 2.5 seconds' is not a truthful statement. The best-case 0-60 acceleration is 2.5 seconds, and not less than 2.5 seconds. And if they said 'fewer than 2.6 seconds' to imply that the recorded 0-60 acceleration is 2.5 seconds, that wouldn't be accurate either, because 2.5999999999 seconds is fewer than 2.6 seconds. But again, so is 1.5 seconds, or even 0 seconds. The analogous case of "10 items or fewer" you cite does not apply here.
"in as little as" I think is the proper usage in this case to convey the proper and accurate information. I guess they could have said "no slower than 2.5 seconds" but that just sounds wrong. (come to think of it, "no faster than 2.5 seconds" is also accurate)
So please tell us how you would make it grammatically correct and an accurate and truthful statement?
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It isn't a singular declaration. Seconds indicate multiple or plural. Less than 1 second. Fewer than 2.5 seconds.
There are fewer than 20 people in this thread.
This isn't a debate about what "sounds" correct, it is about what is truly grammatically correct.
I have a lot of pet peeves in my old age.
Acceleration is uncountable in terms of time, it is only described in quantities. So you can't use fewer to describe it.
A Little / A Few :: Default
You wouldn't say 3 accelerations.
This car has less acceleration than that car.
Can you compare a countable to an uncountable? (really, how does that work?)
It accelerates in a quantity of time comparable with a lower limit of 2.5 seconds, but it is not a countable number of times...
HankLloydRight
No Roads
1 second. 3 seconds. It is quantities of seconds to reach a given end point, in this case, 60 mph.
I can't think of an example where acceleration can be used as a noun. More of a verb.
The acceleration is singular. One acceleration = 2.5 seconds.
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