Both may be correct depending on the speaker. English has exceptions to everything… I learned that from a European.
Comment on Is lemmy now what reddit used to be 10+ years ago?
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 4 weeks agoYour argument is supporting the comment you’re replying to. “Users” is equivalent to “cows” in your example, not “herd”. If you lost 50% of the herd, you’d still have a herd of cows, but you’d have fewer cows, just like there are a lot fewer users in this instance.
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
“users” is a singular group in this context.
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
It’s not, but even if it was, the original comment would be grammatically incorrect.You wouldn’t say “You have a lot less herd”. “Less of a herd” would work, “Your herd is a lot smaller” would work better, but it was written originally as though ‘users’ was a collection of individuals, not a userbase as a singular item.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
“There are a lot fewer users” is the proper grammar. You wouldn’t say “There is users online”, you’d say “There are users online” because users is plural. “There is a user online” would be singular.